Customer Reviews

Apache Jakarta-Tomcat

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a very good book from a web developer and deployer view. It covers servlet and JSP basics and the specifics of deploying web apps on Tomcat. Important web.xml, custom tag library info, and security realm information is covered. The only real Tomcat server configuration discussion is in a chapter on the server.xml file and a chapter on integrating with the Apache server. I was disappointed in the lack of configuration info (especially SSL info, of which there was none) but I have several jsp and servlet books and this book does a better job of describing servlet and JSP deployment basics than any of them. If you are a sysadmin but not a web developer or app deployer, you will be disappointed by this book.

This book is poorly organized and missing essential information. You would be better off with the open source doc, and much better off with another book. I downloaded the book files and got the first set of classes running . Then I made the tiny changes suggested in Chapter 2 and went to my first servlet compile. PROBLEM 1: what and where is the jar necessary to compile? Couldn't find the info in the book, so I did a text search from the Tomcat root on the superclass the compiler was looking for. Aha, .../common/lib/servlet.jar. Then I made the suggested textual change to the JSP file. PROBLEM 2: I made a hard-to-see typo on that one, and learned what a JSP exception looked like. The book didn't cover that eventuality, so back to the web. Searching news groups told me that this was the most common JSP exception, and my installation might be faulty. So I dove into the exception printout, which is pretty opaque, and figured out my mistake. PROBLEM 3: the book says you can use a compressed war file if you "add a new Context entry in ... referencing the apress Web application." This is not a trivial task and the book gives no other help. After a few hours (!) of online searching and experimenting, I discovered this: 1. No one explains what should go in the "Config URL" slot in the "live" Manager install page in Tomcat 4. 2. If you go the <Context> route in server.xml, the error log in .../logs will probably have all the info you need about what went wrong. Book doesn't say a word about checking this if you run into trouble, but it is the FIRST place to look (OK, I was working tired). Tomcat is actually easier to use than this book.
I skimmed the rest of the book after this, then put it down forever. I went out and bought Marty Hall's "More Servlets and JavaServer Pages", and I think you should too.

I was very disappointed when I cracked open the book today to find that much of book is focused on things like writing servlets and jsp based pages, rather than administration of Jakarta-Tomcat. If I wanted a Servlet writing book, I would ref my O'Reilly Java Servlet Programming book.

The main reason I purchased this book was because I wanted to be certain that my Apache driven Solaris box, responsible for virtual hosting several sites, was configured correctly to maintain several instances of the JVM for each customer. Chapter 9 Integrating the Apache HTTP Server is just plain funny. If you delete the "What is Apache" section along with the pictures, weak example and summary, the chapter is only a few paragraphs long! Zero help!

If you enjoy books that are essentially general overviews and contain remotely related content that can be better handled by other dedicated books, then this book is for you!

I just purchased "Professional Apache" by Peter Wainwright and was very impressed with the level of detail given by Peter. Buy it if you want REAL information regarding the configuration and management of Apache. I am still hunting for one of similar caliber for Jakarta-Tomcat!

Finally someone describes Tomcat beyond the online docs. I have noticed that some argue that this doesn't cover anything past the online docs, but I have never seen anything on Embedding Tomcat into Java application, SOAP integration, Log4J integration, or even Struts integration in the online docs.

I also got a lot out of the server.xml appendix.

I just don't understand the "just like the online doc comments."

Great book.

Overall Rating:
Excellent! Useful book for beginners and advanced users.
Teaching Value:
Excellent starting point to learn configuring and using Tomcat.
Reference Value:
Good reference book.

It's a well-written and well-organized book. It covers and touches most of the topics associates with tomcat like Integration with struts, Log4j, Apache Soap etc. You do not have to be familiar with tomcat or apache web server to read this book. Starting chapters even show, in detail, how to set up tomcat server. Advanced users can skip through these chapters.
The book is written for tomcat version 4.0, so even the reader familiar with earlier versions of tomcat can expect to find something new. Explanations of new features of tomcat like Security Realms (Chapter 5), embedding tomcat (chapter 6) and Persistent Sessions (chapter 7) are very good.
The book is very well organized and has lots of small examples and code snippets. So you can write and run what you are reading about (I always find this approach better). I would highly recommend this book to all levels of programmers looking to use tomcat and even those already using tomcat.

This book adds very little to the online documentation provided by the tomcat team and seems to be published in a hurry just to be the first tomcat book in place. E.g. on p.103 at the end of chapter 5 you can read: "In the next chapter, we cover securing a Web application using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)." Well, there is no such chapter in the whole book. The same at the end of chapter 12, where Goodwill promises a Chapter on integrating the XML Apache Soap project into Tomcat. Again, no such Chapter.
Covering the basics, the book does a good job, but as said, the provided ducumentation does it as well.

The author in the preface says that he expects this book to be a complete reference for Tomcat. I would say that it falls far short of the objective.
I had expected a meaningful look at Tomcat. Most of the information presented is already available with the standard Tomcat distribution. There is no attempt to go beyond the surface. It seems the author was in a rush to get a book published, rather than spend time providing some insight into Tomcat.
There is no proper introduction to the terms or concepts related to Tomcat. I don't expect an introduction to servlets or JSP. All I ask for is clear concise definitions of the various Tomcat components and a breakdown of the config files.
If you are intrested in finding more about Tomcat stick to looking for the information online. It will be time well spent.

Talk about being disappointed! This book took a very superficial approach to some very basic concepts and the result is a book that might be useful if you are brand new to deploying servlet-based Web applications but useless if you want to learn about the nuts and bolts. I bought it to make sure that I'd know how to correctly configure Tomcat in a production environment but this book added very little to what I'd already learned from reading the documentation.

It's a shame this book was so poorly written, and misleading in its title. The Java/Tomcat community has been struggling for some time with Tomcat, trying desperately to gain some sort of useful insight from the horrid online documentation. Then along comes this long-awaited manual that could have easily saved the day for thousands of sysadmins.
Problem is, this book provides next to no useful information on the integration of Apache and Tomcat. It's bad enough that this information comes at nearly the end of the book. What's worse, the integration chapter is only a few pages long, and goes no further (in fact, doesn't even go as far) as the documentation that's provided online.
This book is a huge disappointment - you are far better served by picking up a good O'Reilly book on servlets/JSP/etc. and figuring out the Tomcat installation/webapp deployment issues on your own.

This book is good only for the beginner. It scratches only
the surface for most of the topics. At times, I thought it
was a work in progress, and for some reason, the author was
in a hurry to get the book published. The diagrams are awful
is many places. The total content of this book could be easily
squeezed into less than 70 pages.

Most of the stuff explained here is easily available in the
form of articles written for OnJava.com by the author himself.