when deploying two applications build from the riot skeleton within
the same Tomcat servlet container, you get an
IllegalStateException: Web
app
root
system
property
already
set
to
different
value
: 'webapp.root
' = [/Users/joe/
Workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.wst.server.core/tmp0/webapps/
webapp-A/] instead of [/Users/joe/Workspace/.metadata/.plugins/
org.eclipse.wst.server.core/tmp0/webapps/webapp-B/] - Choose unique
values for the 'webAppRootKey' context-param in your web
.xml files!
I will try to explain where this comes from and how to circumvent it,
but first the quick fix for the impatient reader: Place a context
parameter named 'webAppRootKey' in every project's web
.xml and assign
a value
to it, that is unique for every of your projects like the
project name itself.
The webAppRootKey context parameter is introduced by Spring. Along
with the WebAppRootListener it allows exposing the web
applications
root
directory as a system
property
. The value
of the context
parameter 'webAppRootKey' names the system
property
to use. If the
context parameter 'webAppRootKey' is not set
in the application's
web
.xml, Spring chooses the default value
'app
.root
'. While some
servlet containers like Resin do isolate each web
application's
system
properties, others like Tomcat do not. And that's what the
former mentioned IllegalStateException is telling us: The system
property
'app
.root
' already
contains the root
directory of the first
web
application when Spring tries to assign the root
directoty of the
second application to it.
Ok, that's the background information. A deeper look into the web
.xml
tells us, that there ist no WebAppRootListener configured. Why does
this initialisation take place anyway? The stack trace from the
exception reveals the culprit: The Log4jConfigListener also tries to
set
the webAppRootKey, because this is an interesting mechanism for
the Spring/Log4j integration. It allows log and config file locations
relative to the web
applications root
directory. The
Log4jConfigListener supports three init parameters at the servlet
context level: 'log4jConifgLocation', 'log4jRefreshInterval' and
'log4jExposeWebAppRoot'. See JavaDocs for more informations.
But, none of these parameters are set
in the riot project skeleton's
web
.xml and none of the Log4jWebConfigureres features are used by the
riot project skeleton. As long as you do stay with default log4j
setup, the Log4jConfigListener is superflous.
At the end there are three possible solutions for the initial problem:
(1) Provide any of your applications with a unique 'webAppRootKey'.
(2) Set
the servlet context parameter 'log4jExposeWebAppRoot' to
'false'. This eliminates the use of log file locations relative to
the web
application's root
directory but still allows a log4j config
location outside the classpath.
(3) Remove the 'Log4jConfigListener' from your application's web
.xml.
What do you think is the best solution and should be incorporated
into the riot skeleton project?