<?xml version="1.0"?>
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<!DOCTYPE document [
  <!ENTITY project SYSTEM "project.xml">
]>
<document url="host.html">

  &project;

  <properties>
    <author email="craigmcc@apache.org">Craig R. McClanahan</author>
    <author email="remm@apache.org">Remy Maucherat</author>
    <author email="yoavs@apache.org">Yoav Shapira</author>
    <title>The Host Container</title>
  </properties>

<body>

<section name="Table of Contents">
<toc/>
</section>

<section name="Introduction">

  <p>The <strong>Host</strong> element represents a <em>virtual host</em>,
  which is an association of a network name for a server (such as
  "www.mycompany.com" with the particular server on which Tomcat is running.
  For clients to be able to connect to a Tomcat server using its network name,
  this name must be registered in the <em>Domain Name Service</em> (DNS) server
  that manages the Internet domain you belong to - contact your Network
  Administrator for more information.</p>

  <p>In many cases, System Administrators wish to associate more than
  one network name (such as <code>www.mycompany.com</code> and
  <code>company.com</code>) with the same virtual host and applications.
  This can be accomplished using the <a href="#Host_Name_Aliases">Host
  Name Aliases</a> feature discussed below.</p>

  <p>One or more <strong>Host</strong> elements are nested inside an
  <a href="engine.html">Engine</a> element.  Inside the Host element, you
  can nest <a href="context.html">Context</a> elements for the web
  applications associated with this virtual host.  Exactly one of the Hosts
  associated with each Engine MUST have a name matching the
  <code>defaultHost</code> attribute of that Engine.</p>

  <p>Clients normally use host names to identify the server they wish to connect
  to. This host name is also included in the HTTP request headers. Tomcat
  extracts the host name from the HTTP headers and looks for a
  <strong>Host</strong> with a matching name. If no match is found, the request
  is routed to the default host. The name of the default host does not have to
  match a DNS name (although it can) since any request where the DNS name does
  not match the name of a <strong>Host</strong> element will be routed to the
  default host.</p>

    <p><em>The description below uses the variable name $CATALINA_BASE to refer the
    base directory against which most relative paths are resolved. If you have
    not configured Tomcat for multiple instances by setting a CATALINA_BASE
    directory, then $CATALINA_BASE will be set to the value of $CATALINA_HOME,
    the directory into which you have installed Tomcat.</em></p>

</section>


<section name="Attributes">

  <subsection name="Common Attributes">

    <p>All implementations of <strong>Host</strong>
    support the following attributes:</p>

    <attributes>

      <attribute name="appBase" required="true">
        <p>The <em>Application Base</em> directory for this virtual host.
        This is the pathname of a directory that may contain web applications
        to be deployed on this virtual host.  You may specify an
        absolute pathname, or a pathname that is relative to the
        <code>$CATALINA_BASE</code> directory.  See
        <a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
        Deployment</a> for more information on automatic recognition and
        deployment of web applications. If not specified, the default of
        <code>webapps</code> will be used.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="xmlBase" required="false">
        <p>The <em>XML Base</em> directory for this virtual host.
        This is the pathname of a directory that may contain context XML
        descriptors to be deployed on this virtual host.  You may specify an
        absolute pathname for this directory, or a pathname that is relative
        to the <code>$CATALINA_BASE</code> directory.  See
        <a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
        Deployment</a> for more information on automatic recognition and
        deployment of web applications. If not specified the default of
        <code>conf/&lt;engine_name&gt;/&lt;host_name&gt;</code> will be used.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="createDirs" required="false">
        <p>If set to true, Tomcat will attempt to create the directories defined
        by the  attributes <code>appBase</code> and <code>xmlBase</code> during
        the startup phase. The default value is <code>true</code>. If set to
        true, and directory creation fails, an error message will be printed out
        but will not halt the startup sequence.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="autoDeploy" required="false">
        <p>This flag value indicates if Tomcat should check periodically for new
        or updated web applications while Tomcat is running. If true, Tomcat
        periodically checks the <code>appBase</code> and <code>xmlBase</code>
        directories and deploys any new web applications or context XML
        descriptors found. Updated web applications or context XML descriptors
        will trigger a reload of the web application. The flag's value defaults
        to true.  See
        <a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
        Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="backgroundProcessorDelay" required="false">
        <p>This value represents the delay in seconds between the
        invocation of the backgroundProcess method on this host and
        its child containers, including all contexts.
        Child containers will not be invoked if their delay value is not
        negative (which would mean they are using their own processing
        thread). Setting this to a positive value will cause
        a thread to be spawn. After waiting the specified amount of time,
        the thread will invoke the backgroundProcess method on this host
        and all its child containers. A host will use background processing to
        perform live web application deployment related tasks. If not
        specified, the default value for this attribute is -1, which means
        the host will rely on the background processing thread of its parent
        engine.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="className" required="false">
        <p>Java class name of the implementation to use.  This class must
        implement the <code>org.apache.catalina.Host</code> interface.
        If not specified, the standard value (defined below) will be used.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="deployIgnore" required="false">
        <p>A regular expression defining paths to ignore when
        <code>autoDeploy</code> and <code>deployOnStartup</code> are set. This
        allows you to keep your configuration in a version control system, for
        example, and not deploy a .svn or CVS folder that happens to be in the
        <code>appBase</code>.</p>
        <p>This regular expression is relative to <code>appBase</code>. It is
        also <em>anchored</em>, meaning the match is performed against the
        entire file/directory name. So, <code>foo</code> matches only a file or
        directory named <code>foo</code> but not <code>foo.war</code>,
        <code>foobar</code>, or <code>myfooapp</code>. To match anything with
        &quot;foo&quot;, you could use <code>.*foo.*</code>.</p>
        <p>See <a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
        Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="deployOnStartup" required="false">
        <p>This flag value indicates if web applications from this host should
        be automatically deployed when Tomcat starts. The flag's value defaults
        to true.  See
        <a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
        Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="failCtxIfServletStartFails" required="false">
        <p>Set to <code>true</code> to have each child contexts fail its startup
        if any of its servlet that has load-on-startup &gt;=0 fails its own
        startup.</p>
        <p>Each child context may override this attribute.</p>
        <p>If not specified, the default value of <code>false</code> is
        used.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="name" required="true">
        <p>Usually the network name of this virtual host, as registered in your
        <em>Domain Name Service</em> server. Regardless of the case used to
        specify the host name, Tomcat will convert it to lower case internally.
        One of the Hosts nested within an <a href="engine.html">Engine</a> MUST
        have a name that matches the <code>defaultHost</code> setting for that
        Engine.  See <a href="#Host_Name_Aliases">Host Name Aliases</a> for
        information on how to assign more than one network name to the same
        virtual host.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="startStopThreads" required="false">
        <p>The number of threads this <strong>Host</strong> will use to start
        child <a href="context.html">Context</a> elements in parallel. The same
        thread pool will be used to deploy new
        <a href="context.html">Context</a>s if automatic deployment is being
        used. The special value of 0 will result in the value of
        <code>Runtime.getRuntime().availableProcessors()</code> being used.
        Negative values will result in
        <code>Runtime.getRuntime().availableProcessors() + value</code> being
        used unless this is less than 1 in which case 1 thread will be used. If
        not specified, the default value of 1 will be used.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="undeployOldVersions" required="false">
        <p>This flag determines if Tomcat, as part of the auto deployment
        process, will check for old, unused versions of web applications
        deployed using parallel deployment and, if any are found, remove them.
        This flag only applies if <code>autoDeploy</code> is true. If not
        specified the default value of false will be used.</p>
      </attribute>

    </attributes>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="Standard Implementation">

    <p>The standard implementation of <strong>Host</strong> is
    <strong>org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost</strong>.
    It supports the following additional attributes (in addition to the
    common attributes listed above):</p>

    <attributes>

      <attribute name="copyXML" required="false">
        <p>Set to <code>true</code> if you want a context XML descriptor
        embedded inside the application (located at
        <code>/META-INF/context.xml</code>) to be copied to <code>xmlBase</code>
        when the application is deployed. On subsequent starts, the copied
        context XML descriptor will be used in preference to any context XML
        descriptor embedded inside the application even if the descriptor
        embedded inside the application is more recent. The flag's value
        defaults to <code>false</code>.  Note if <strong>deployXML</strong>
        is <code>false</code>, this attribute will have no effect.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="deployXML" required="false">
        <p>Set to <code>false</code> if you want to disable parsing the context
        XML descriptor embedded inside the application (located at
        <code>/META-INF/context.xml</code>). Security conscious environments
        should set this to <code>false</code> to prevent applications from
        interacting with the container's configuration. The  administrator will
        then be responsible for providing an external context configuration
        file, and putting it in the location defined by the
        <strong>xmlBase</strong> attribute. If this flag is <code>false</code>,
        a descriptor is located at <code>/META-INF/context.xml</code> and no
        descriptor is present in <strong>xmlBase</strong> then the context will
        fail to start in case the descriptor contains necessary configuration
        for secure deployment (such as a RemoteAddrValve) which should not be
        ignored. The flag's value defaults to <code>true</code> unless a
        security manager is enabled when the default is <code>false</code>.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="errorReportValveClass" required="false">
        <p>Java class name of the error reporting valve which will be used
        by this Host. The responsibility of this valve is to output error
        reports. Setting this property allows to customize the look of the
        error pages which will be generated by Tomcat. This class must
        implement the
        <code>org.apache.catalina.Valve</code> interface. If none is specified,
        the value <code>org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve</code>
        will be used by default.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="unpackWARs" required="false">
        <p>Set to <code>true</code> if you want web applications that are
        placed in the <code>appBase</code> directory as web application
        archive (WAR) files to be unpacked into a corresponding disk directory
        structure, <code>false</code> to run such web applications directly
        from a WAR file. WAR files located outside of the Host's
        <strong>appBase</strong> will not be expanded. See
        <a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
        Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
      </attribute>

      <attribute name="workDir" required="false">
        <p>Pathname to a scratch directory to be used by applications for
        this Host. Each application will have its own sub directory with
        temporary read-write use.  Configuring a Context workDir will override
        use of the Host workDir configuration.  This directory will be made
        visible to servlets in the web application by a servlet context
        attribute (of type <code>java.io.File</code>) named
        <code>javax.servlet.context.tempdir</code> as described in the
        Servlet Specification.  If not specified, a suitable directory
        underneath <code>$CATALINA_BASE/work</code> will be provided.</p>
      </attribute>

    </attributes>

  </subsection>


</section>


<section name="Nested Components">

  <p>You can nest one or more <a href="context.html">Context</a> elements
  inside this <strong>Host</strong> element, each representing a different web
  application associated with this virtual host.</p>

  <p>You can nest at most one instance of the following utility components
  by nesting a corresponding element inside your <strong>Host</strong>
  element:</p>
  <ul>
  <li><a href="realm.html"><strong>Realm</strong></a> -
      Configure a realm that will allow its
      database of users, and their associated roles, to be shared across all
      <a href="context.html">Contexts</a> nested inside this Host (unless
      overridden by a <a href="realm.html">Realm</a> configuration
      at a lower level).</li>
  </ul>

</section>


<section name="Special Features">


  <subsection name="Logging">

    <p>A host is associated with the
       <code>org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[engine_name].[host_name]</code>
       log category.  Note that the brackets are part of the name,
       don't omit them.</p>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="Access Logs">

    <p>When you run a web server, one of the output files normally generated
    is an <em>access log</em>, which generates one line of information for
    each request processed by the server, in a standard format.  Catalina
    includes an optional <a href="valve.html">Valve</a> implementation that
    can create access logs in the same standard format created by web servers,
    or in any number of custom formats.</p>

    <p>You can ask Catalina to create an access log for all requests
    processed by an <a href="engine.html">Engine</a>,
    <a href="host.html">Host</a>, or <a href="context.html">Context</a>
    by nesting a <a href="valve.html">Valve</a> element like this:</p>

<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
  ...
  <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve"
         prefix="localhost_access_log." suffix=".txt"
         pattern="common"/>
  ...
</Host>]]></source>

    <p>See <a href="valve.html#Access_Logging">Access Logging Valves</a>
    for more information on the configuration attributes that are
    supported.</p>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="Automatic Application Deployment">

    <p>If you are using the standard <strong>Host</strong> implementation with
    default settings then applications in the <em>appBase</em> or with context
    files in the <em>configBase</em> are automatically deployed when Tomcat
    starts (the <code>deployOnStartup</code> property defaults to
    <code>true</code>) and reloaded or redeployed (as appropriate) when a change
    is detected while Tomcat is running (the <code>autoDeploy</code> attribute
    also defaults to <code>true</code>).</p>

    <p><code>deployOnStartup</code> and <code>autoDeploy</code> trigger
    execution of exactly the same code so the behaviour is very similar.
    However, there is one key difference. When Tomcat starts it has no knowledge
    of which files are the same, which have been changed and which are new. It
    therefore treats all files as new. While Tomcat is running, it can
    differentiate between unchanged, modified and new files. This leads to some
    differences in behaviour between files being modified while Tomcat is
    running and files being modified while Tomcat is stopped.</p>

    <p>When you use automatic deployment, related files (a web application may
    have a context.xml file, a WAR and a directory) that exist in the
    <strong>Host</strong>&apos;s <em>appBase</em> and/or <em>configBase</em>
    must conform to the expected <a href="context.html#Naming">naming
    convention</a>. In short, this means files for the same web application must
    share the same <em>base name</em>.</p>

    <p>The automatic deployment process identifies new and/or modified web
    applications using the following search order:</p>

    <ol>
      <li>Web applications with a context.xml file located in the Host&apos;s
      <em>configBase</em>.</li>
      <li>Web applications with a WAR file located in the Host&apos;s
      <em>appBase</em> that have not already been identified during the scan for
      context.xml files.</li>
      <li>Web applications with a directory located in the Host&apos;s
      <em>appBase</em> that have not already been identified during the scans
      for context.xml and/or WAR files.</li>
    </ol>

    <p>When <code>autoDeploy</code> is <code>true</code>, the automatic
    deployment process will monitor the deployed web applications for changes.
    Depending on exactly what changes, the web application will either be
    re-deployed or reloaded. Re-deployment involves the creation of a new web
    application and, if using the standard session manager, user sessions will
    not be retained. Reloading uses the existing web application but re-parses
    the web.xml and reloads any classes. If using the standard session manager,
    user sessions will be persisted.</p>

    <p>Users may add to the files that the automatic deployment process monitors
    for reloading (i.e. any change to one of these files triggers a reload of
    the web application) by adding a <em>WatchedResources</em> element to the
    context.xml file. See the
    <a href="context.html#Nested_Components">Context</a> documentation for
    further details.</p>

    <p>When using automatic deployment, the <code>docBase</code> defined by
    an XML <a href="context.html">Context</a> file should be outside of the
    <code>appBase</code> directory. If this is not the case, difficulties
    may be experienced deploying the web application or the application may
    be deployed twice. The <code>deployIgnore</code> attribute can be used
    to avoid this situation.</p>

    <p>Note that if you are defining contexts explicitly in server.xml, you
    should probably turn off automatic application deployment or specify
    <code>deployIgnore</code> carefully. Otherwise, the web applications
    will each be deployed twice, and that may cause problems for the
    applications.</p>

    <p>There are many possible combinations of settings, new files, changed
    files and deleted files. A separate page describes the
    <a href="automatic-deployment.html">expected behaviour of the automatic
    deployment process</a> in many of these scenarios.</p>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="Host Name Aliases">

    <p>In many server environments, Network Administrators have configured
    more than one network name (in the <em>Domain Name Service</em> (DNS)
    server), that resolve to the IP address of the same server.  Normally,
    each such network name would be configured as a separate
    <strong>Host</strong> element in <code>conf/server.xml</code>, each
    with its own set of web applications.</p>

    <p>However, in some circumstances, it is desirable that two or more
    network names should resolve to the <strong>same</strong> virtual host,
    running the same set of applications.  A common use case for this
    scenario is a corporate web site, where it is desirable that users
    be able to utilize either <code>www.mycompany.com</code> or
    <code>company.com</code> to access exactly the same content and
    applications.</p>

    <p>This is accomplished by utilizing one or more <strong>Alias</strong>
    elements nested inside your <strong>Host</strong> element.  For
    example:</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="www.mycompany.com" ...>
  ...
  <Alias>mycompany.com</Alias>
  ...
</Host>]]></source>

    <p>In order for this strategy to be effective, all of the network names
    involved must be registered in your DNS server to resolve to the
    same computer that is running this instance of Catalina.</p>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="Lifecycle Listeners">

    <p>If you have implemented a Java object that needs to know when this
    <strong>Host</strong> is started or stopped, you can declare it by
    nesting a <strong>Listener</strong> element inside this element.  The
    class name you specify must implement the
    <code>org.apache.catalina.LifecycleListener</code> interface, and
    it will be notified about the occurrence of the corresponding
    lifecycle events.  Configuration of such a listener looks like this:</p>

<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
  ...
  <Listener className="com.mycompany.mypackage.MyListener" ... >
  ...
</Host>]]></source>

    <p>Note that a Listener can have any number of additional properties
    that may be configured from this element.  Attribute names are matched
    to corresponding JavaBean property names using the standard property
    method naming patterns.</p>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="Request Filters">

    <p>You can ask Catalina to check the IP address, or host name, on every
    incoming request directed to the surrounding
    <a href="engine.html">Engine</a>, <a href="host.html">Host</a>, or
    <a href="context.html">Context</a> element.  The remote address or name
    will be checked against configured "accept" and/or "deny"
    filters, which are defined using <code>java.util.regex</code> Regular
    Expression syntax.  Requests that come from locations that are
    not accepted will be rejected with an HTTP "Forbidden" error.
    Example filter declarations:</p>

<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
  ...
  <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteHostValve"
         allow=".*\.mycompany\.com|www\.yourcompany\.com"/>
  <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve"
         deny="192\.168\.1\.\d+"/>
  ...
</Host>]]></source>

  <p>See <a href="valve.html#Remote_Address_Filter">Remote Address Filter</a>
  and <a href="valve.html#Remote_Host_Filter">Remote Host Filter</a> for
  more information about the configuration options that are supported.</p>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="Single Sign On">

    <p>In many environments, but particularly in portal environments, it
    is desireable to have a user challenged to authenticate themselves only
    once over a set of web applications deployed on a particular virtual
    host.  This can be accomplished by nesting an element like this inside
    the Host element for this virtual host:</p>

<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
  ...
  <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SingleSignOn"/>
  ...
</Host>]]></source>

    <p>The Single Sign On facility operates according to the following rules:
    </p>
    <ul>
    <li>All web applications configured for this virtual host must share the
        same <a href="realm.html">Realm</a>.  In practice, that means you can
        nest the Realm element inside this Host element (or the surrounding
        <a href="engine.html">Engine</a> element), but not inside a
        <a href="context.html">Context</a> element for one of the involved
        web applications.</li>
    <li>As long as the user accesses only unprotected resources in any of the
        web applications on this virtual host, they will not be challenged
        to authenticate themselves.</li>
    <li>As soon as the user accesses a protected resource in
        <strong>any</strong> web application associated with this virtual
        host, the user will be challenged to authenticate himself or herself,
        using the login method defined for the web application currently
        being accessed.</li>
    <li>Once authenticated, the roles associated with this user will be
        utilized for access control decisions across <strong>all</strong>
        of the associated web applications, without challenging the user
        to authenticate themselves to each application individually.</li>
    <li>As soon as the user logs out of one web application (for example,
        by invalidating the corresponding session if form
        based login is used), the user's sessions in <strong>all</strong>
        web applications will be invalidated.  Any subsequent attempt to
        access a protected resource in any application will require the
        user to authenticate himself or herself again.</li>
    <li>The Single Sign On feature utilizes HTTP cookies to transmit a token
        that associates each request with the saved user identity, so it can
        only be utilized in client environments that support cookies.</li>
    </ul>

  </subsection>


  <subsection name="User Web Applications">

    <p>Many web servers can automatically map a request URI starting with
    a tilde character ("~") and a username to a directory (commonly named
    <code>public_html</code>) in that user's home directory on the server.
    You can accomplish the same thing in Catalina by using a special
    <strong>Listener</strong> element like this (on a Unix system that
    uses the <code>/etc/passwd</code> file to identify valid users):</p>

<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
  ...
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.startup.UserConfig"
            directoryName="public_html"
            userClass="org.apache.catalina.startup.PasswdUserDatabase"/>
  ...
</Host>]]></source>

    <p>On a server where <code>/etc/passwd</code> is not in use, you can
    request Catalina to consider all directories found in a specified base
    directory (such as <code>c:\Homes</code> in this example) to be
    considered "user home" directories for the purposes of this directive:</p>

<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
  ...
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.startup.UserConfig"
            directoryName="public_html"
            homeBase=c:\Homes"
            userClass="org.apache.catalina.startup.HomesUserDatabase"/>
  ...
</Host>]]></source>

    <p>If a user home directory has been set up for a user named
    <code>craigmcc</code>, then its contents will be visible from a
    client browser by making a request to a URL like:</p>

<source>http://www.mycompany.com:8080/~craigmcc</source>

    <p>Successful use of this feature requires recognition of the following
    considerations:</p>
    <ul>
    <li>Each user web application will be deployed with characteristics
        established by the global and host level default context settings.</li>
    <li>It is legal to include more than one instance of this Listener
        element.  This would only be useful, however, in circumstances
        where you wanted to configure more than one "homeBase" directory.</li>
    <li>The operating system username under which Catalina is executed
        MUST have read access to each user's web application directory,
        and all of its contents.</li>
    </ul>

  </subsection>


</section>


</body>


</document>
