deploy spring war to tomcat.

omcat7 deployment can be automated from Maven using tomcat7-maven-plugin,  http://tomcat.apache.org/maven-plugin-2.0-SNAPSHOT/tomcat7-maven-plugin/plugin-info.html.  To enable Tomcat deployment, do the following,

• Configure Tomcat7
• Add plugin to pom.xml 
• Invoke tomcat7:deploy
• Troubleshooting

Configure Tomcat7

Edit conf/tomcat-users.xml, and append the following,

< role rolename = "manager" /> < role rolename = "manager-gui" /> < role rolename = "admin" /> < user username = "admin" password = "admin" roles = "admin,manager,manager-gui" />

Add plugin to pom.xml 

< pluginRepositories >   ....      < pluginRepository >          < id >apache.snapshots</ id >          < name >Apache Snapshots</ name >          < url >http://people.apache.org/repo/m2-snapshot-repository</ url >          < releases >              < enabled >false</ enabled >          </ releases >          < snapshots >              < enabled >true</ enabled >          </ snapshots >      </ pluginRepository >   .... </ pluginRepositories >     < build > < plugins > .... < plugin >      < groupId >org.apache.tomcat.maven</ groupId >      < artifactId >tomcat7-maven-plugin</ artifactId >      < version >2.0-SNAPSHOT</ version >      < configuration >          < username >admin</ username >          < password >admin</ password >          < update >true</ update >      </ configuration > </ plugin >   .... </ plugins > </ build >

Invoke tomcat7:deploy

Add a Run As profile for your Maven build with the following,

clean package tomcat7:deploy

Troubleshooting

403 forbidden error: make sure you use tomcat7 not tomcat  (some default value such as <url> has changed in Tomcat 7)