Deploying Spring Boot WAR file with JSP to Tomcat

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In this tutorial, I show you how we can deploy a Spring Boot application using JSP to external Tomcat server. First we create a simple Spring boot web application with JSP then we will create a WAR file of it and finally we deploy the WAR file in the external tomcat server.

Learn Spring boot at https://www.javaguides.net/p/spring-boot-tutorial.html.

Learn Hibernate at https://www.javaguides.net/p/hibernate-tutorial.html 

Development Steps

1. Create Spring Boot Application
2. Add maven dependencies
3. Configure InternalResourceViewResolver for JSPs in application.properties file
4. Create JSP page
5. Create WAR file
6. Deploy to Tomcat

1. Create a Spring Boot Application

There are many ways to create a Spring Boot application. You can refer below articles to create a Spring Boot application.

>> Create Spring Boot Project With Spring Initializer
>> Create Spring Boot Project in Spring Tool Suite [STS]

2. Add maven dependencies

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project
    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.0.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath />
        <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>net.javaguides</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-data-war</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <name>spring-data-war</name>
    <description>Demo project for Spring Boot Restful web services</description>
    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <!-- Need this to compile JSP -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
            <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.junit.vintage</groupId>
                    <artifactId>junit-vintage-engine</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <finalName>springboot-jsp-web</finalName>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

3. Create HelloWorldController

Let's create a simple HelloWorldController class which exposes a "/test" request mapping:

package net.javaguides.springboot;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

@Controller
public class HelloWorldController {
    @RequestMapping("/test")
    public String sayHello() {
        return "hello";
    }
}

3. Configure InternalResourceViewResolver for JSPs in application.properties file

spring.mvc.view.prefix=/WEB-INF/view/
spring.mvc.view.suffix=.jsp

4. Create JSP page

Create JSP view pages under src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/view directory ( If the directory does not exist then create directory structure):

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
    pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="ISO-8859-1">
<title>Insert title here</title>
</head>
<body>
    <p>
    Hello World! Time is <%= new java.util.Date() %>
    </p>
     
    <p>
    We are running on  <%= application.getServerInfo() %>!!!
    </p>
    
</body>
</html>

5. Create WAR file

To create a WAR file, perform the following steps.

1. Update main Spring Boot application

In your main Spring Boot application, you need to extend the SpringBootServletInitializer and override the configure(...) method:

package net.javaguides.springboot;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.builder.SpringApplicationBuilder;
import org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.SpringBootServletInitializer;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringDataWarApplication extends SpringBootServletInitializer {

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
        return application.sources(SpringDataWarApplication.class);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringDataWarApplication.class, args);
    }
}

3. Update Maven POM file

• Update your POM.xml to use WAR packaging

<packaging>war</packaging>

• In POM.xml, add dependency to be able to compile JSPs

<dependency>
 <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
 <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
 <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

• Make sure the Tomcat embedded does not interfere with the external Tomcat server.

<dependency>
 <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
 <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
 <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

• Create the WAR file with the command:

mvn clean install

This will generate a WAR file in your project directory: target/springboot-jsp-web.war

6. Deploy to Tomcat

Copy your WAR file to the <tomcat-server>/webapps directory, wait for few seconds for Tomcat to deploy your app.

In a web browser, access your app at: http://localhost:8080/springboot-jsp-web/test

If everything is successful, you will see your application's web page.

Congratulations! You deployed a Spring Boot WAR file with JSP on to a Tomcat server.

Learn Spring boot at https://www.javaguides.net/p/spring-boot-tutorial.html.

Learn Hibernate at https://www.javaguides.net/p/hibernate-tutorial.html 

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