I’ve been starting work on getting JASIG CAS (Central Authentication Server) to work with all my applications. One of the requirements for JASIG is that it needs to run on Apache Tomcat. Following the instructions on http://www.debianadmin.com/how-to-setup-apache-tomcat-55-on-debian-etch.html I was able to get the basics running on the Tomcat 5.5 server. However, I did encounter issues when trying to add in a *.WAR application to the server. I copied the files in the correct place /var/lib/tomcat5.5/webapps but for some reason the files weren’t getting deployed.

I figured out the simple fix for getting these applications to work in the webapps folder:

1. Edit the  /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5   file
2. Find the following lines:
   # Use the Java security manager? (yes/no)
   TOMCAT5_SECURITY=yes
3. Change the TOMCAT5_SECURITY to
   TOMCAT5_SECURITY=no
4. Restart tomcat
   /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 restart

You should now be able to see the deployed applications. If not, use the Tomcat manager to upload the *.war file back into the server. The files should now appear in the application list.