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QMShibb - Installing Tomcat with IIS 6

Although QMShibb will work on any server running a servlet container, it is convenient to install it into IIS on the same server as that running QuestionMark Perception. Unfortunately, IIS is not a servlet container, so you must install Java and Tomcat, and then optionally install the Jakarta Tomcat Connector. Here's how to do it. I'm assuming that you are running Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0.

Install Java

Download the Java JDK 1.5 from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp

Choose a custom installation so that you can specify the installation location. I chose to install in c:\Program Files\Java

When the Java JDK has installed, you need to set a couple of environment variables to ensure that Tomcat will work correctly. Click on the Windows Start button at the bottom left of your screen. Select Control Panel. In the Control panel, select System. This will bring up the System Properties dialog. Click on the Advanced tab and then on the Environment Variables button. Create a variable called JAVA_HOME and give it the value of the directory where you installed Java - in my case this is c:\Program Files\Java. Create another environment variable called CATALINA_HOME and give it the value c:\Program Files\Tomcat 5.5 then close the environment variables dialog. Back in Control Panel, select the Java item. This will launch the Java Control Panel. Select the Update tab. Make sure that the Check for Updates Automatically box is unchecked. Close the Java Control Panel and the Windows Control Panel.

Install Apache Tomcat

Download the Windows Excutable from http://tomcat.apache.org/download-55.cgi. At the time of writing the current version is 5.5.17.

Run the installer and select a Full Installation.

At the Choose Install Location dialog, enter c:\Program Files\Tomcat 5.5

At the Configuration Options, leave the port as 8080 (assuming you have nothing else running on that port) and change the password to a strong one that you can remember.

At the Java Virtual Machine dialog, enter the path to your Java setup - in my case c:\Program Files\Java

At the final dialog, click on the Finish button. Tomcat is now installed as service that will start automatically.

Install the Jakarta Tomcat Connector

It is not essential to install the Connector as Tomcat and IIS will coexist happily, each serving pages on their respective ports, 8080 and 80. However, it is convenient to arrange for IIS to receive all requests and to pass those for servlets to Tomcat while dealing with all other requests itself. In this case, all requests can address IIS and the users can ignore the issue of ports.

The Apache Tomcat website has a complicated protocol for installing the connector, involving dangerous operations such as editing the registry. Mercifully, this is not necessary as there is a program you can download that handles most of the installation process. Download isapi_redirect.msi from http://www.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-connectors/jk/binaries/win32/jk-1.2.15/. Run the installer and install the redirector to c:\Program Files\Tomcat 5.5.

Open IIS manager and check that there is a virtual directory called jakarta in the default web site. The virtual directory should point to c:\Program Files\Tomcat 5.5\bin and it should contain the files isapi_redirect.dll and isapi_redirect.properties as well as some others. Check that there is a Web Service Extension called jakarta whose status is Allowed.

Right-click on Default Web Site in the left pane. Select Properties. In the Default Web Site Properties dialog, click on the ISAPI Filters tab. There should be a filter called jakarta, but this step of the installation often fails. If it's not there, click on the Add... button. Give the filter the name jakarta, set the executable as c:\Program Files\Tomcat 5.5\bin\isapi_redirect.dll and then click on OK.

Go to the directory c:\Program Files\Tomcat 5.5\conf and open the file server.xml in a text editor. Locate the line:

<Connector port="8009" enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" protocol="AJP/1.3" />

Make sure that this entry is not commented out. Save the file.

Open the file workers.properties in a text editor and edit its contents to the following:

worker.list=wlb,jkstatus

worker.ajp13w.type=ajp13
worker.ajp13w.host=localhost
worker.ajp13w.port=8009

worker.wlb.type=lb
worker.wlb.balance_workers=ajp13w

worker.jkstatus.type=status

Save the file.

Open the file uriworkers.properties in a text editor and edit its contents to the following:

/admin/*=wlb
/manager/*=wlb
/jsp-examples/*=wlb
/servlets-examples/*=wlb
/QMShibb/*=wlb

/jkmanager=jkstatus

Save the file.

Now restart Tomcat and IIS. All requests for URLs containing the directories admin, manager, jsp-examples, servlets-examples and QMShibb will now be passed from IIS to Tomcat.

To reiterate: these instructions show how to install Tomcat into the IIS server running Perception, but QMShibb can be installed into Tomcat running on any server - the server running Perception, the server running a Java-based VLE such as Bodington, or an entirely separate server.

Posted at 01:58PM May 12, 2006 by Andrew G. Booth in Questionmark Perception  |