Deploy a WAR file of a Java web application on the Apache Tomcat web server

There are two ways to deploy a WAR file of a Java web application on the Apache Tomcat web server

Using the command line

1. Copy the WAR file into the webapps folder of the Tomcat installation directory,
2. Make sure the CATALINA_HOME environment variable points to the Tomcat directory (not the bin subdirectry)
3. Open a Terminal window or Command Prompt,
4. Navigate to the bin directory of the Tomcat web server installation directory,
5. Execute

   startup

6. Tomcat will unzip the war file into a directory named after the WAR file and display the message similar to this.
   

   C:\Program Files\apache-tomcat-8.5.23\bin>startup
   Using CATALINA_BASE: “C:\Program Files\apache-tomcat-8.5.23”
   Using CATALINA_HOME: “C:\Program Files\apache-tomcat-8.5.23”
   Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: “C:\Program Files\apache-tomcat-8.5.23\temp”
   Using JRE_HOME: “C:\Program Files\Java\jre-9.0.1”
   Using CLASSPATH: “C:\Program Files\apache-tomcat-8.5.23\bin\bootstrap.jar;C:\Program Files\apache-tomcat-8.5.23\bin\tomcat-juli.jar”C:\Program Files\apache-tomcat-8.5.23\bin>

Using the Tomcat user interface

1. Remote into the web server,
2. Copy the WAR file to a temp directory,
3. Open the Tomcat web user interface at http://localhost:8080/manager
4. Log in with the credentials specified for the manager-gui role in the tomcat-users.xml file of the conf Tomcat folder,
5. In WAR file to deploy section click the Choose File button and select the WAR file,
   
6. Click the Deploy button,
   
7. Tomcat will unzip the war file into a directory named after the WAR file in the webapps folder of the Tomcat installation directory.