Maybe I can help you with the second question at least:
I removed the default host and put several virtual hosts in
my server.xml and some of them contain the same path "/". It
works just beautifully. Maybe you throw out the default host
like I did. If tomcat works like apache, it will use the
first virtual host as default host anyway. Maybe there is
also a problem using an empty "" path.
cheers,
*stefan
> 2. I set up two virtual hosts in server.xml in addition
> to the default host, which I left as-shipped. They
> each contain a context with a path = "". When I access
> 'www.host1.com:8080' I get the correct results. When
> I access 'www.host2.com:8080' I get a 503 error.
> Eliminating either entry allows the other to work.
> It appears to be a "Clash of the Contexts", where
> two contexts cannot have the same name, regardless of
> the host in which they are nexted. The following log
> error suggests something in this area too:
> 2001-04-05 05:33:37 StandardContext[]: Error initializing
> naming context for context
> 2001-04-05 05:33:37 StandardContext[]: Context startup
> failed due to previous errors
