Java Spring Boot - war file not deploying on Tomcat Apache

Question

I am building a Java Spring boot project - and as a requirement I need to generate the project as a war file - and then have Tomcat Apache run from this alone.

I've built the war file, but when I try to deploy it, its as if the structure is incorrect and its generating a 404 trying to view the project.

the problem

my pom

http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"> 4.0.0

<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>gs-spring-boot</artifactId>
<version>0.1.0</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.7.RELEASE</version>
</parent>

<dependencies>
    <!-- web -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- test -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <!-- Spring Security -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- jpa -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.hibernate.javax.persistence/hibernate-jpa-2.0-api -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate.javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-jpa-2.0-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.0.1.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <!-- mysql connector -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- mail service -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-mail</artifactId>
    </dependency>       
    <!-- hot swapping, disable cache for template, enable live reload -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
        <optional>true</optional>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <!-- freemarker template -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.freemarker</groupId>
        <artifactId>freemarker</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.23</version>
    </dependency>
    <!-- json simple -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.googlecode.json-simple</groupId>
        <artifactId>json-simple</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.1</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- tag::actuator[] -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!-- end::actuator[] -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-configuration-processor</artifactId>
        <optional>true</optional>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
        <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.194</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

<properties>
    <java.version>1.8</java.version>
</properties>

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>integration-test</goal>
                        <goal>verify</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Update you question with web.xml & project directory structure with your trying 404 URL — user4856296
This is reason you getting 404 because your application server unable to map project or If you don't need web.xml then stackoverflow.com/questions/37960038/… . — user4856296
Once you include the dependency of spring-boot-starter-web, Spring will automatically add embedded Tomcat as default web container for you. Why do you deploy your application to Tomcat again? — LHCHIN

The Old County The Old County · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-13T11:31:04

To get Spring Boot to deploy as a war - you need to reconfigure the Application class.

https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/html/howto-traditional-deployment.html#howto-create-a-deployable-war-file

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application extends SpringBootServletInitializer {

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

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

}

in the pom.xml add

<packaging>war</packaging>

as I was using maven I also added the dependency.

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

My application was complicated in that I was using reactjs as a frontend presentation layer and the Java just as an api layer. I had to move the reactjs build into main/src/webapps -- this then gets rendered in the war file correctly as bundle of js, css and html files. With the reactjs acting as a presentation layer it could only connect to the java side via the api - so the url structure is important and I had placed everything in anticipation it would run from the root. So if you deploy to tomcat - you may need to rename the war file ROOT.war.

Java Spring Boot - war file not deploying on Tomcat Apache

4 Answers