From an unrelated thread:
> > You don't pretend to win the coveted Whiner Of The Month award > > with this, I hope. There's a lot of competition, you know.
I think this post gets my vote for this coveted award. Everyone: you have only 7 days left to submit your entries!
There are three section to this email; 'General Complaints', 'IIS HOW-TO', and 'Workers HOW-TO'.
No, you have one section: complaining about everything. I mistakenly read the whole post, thinking that there woud, in fact, be an "IIS HOWTO" and "Workers HOWTO" contained somewhere within. Alas, there was not.
General complaints: (in no particular order)
I recognize that there are shortcomings in the documentation. You do realize that pretty much nobody gets paid to write this stuff, right? If you have spent a significant amount of time figuring something out, why not help out with the project and submit either a replacement document for IIS/Tomcat or a patch to any existing documentation?
IIS HOW-TO:
1) Obviously, all references to Workers HOW-TO point to a defective document, as shown in the section on the workers HOW-TO.
> > [snip] > > Workers HOW-TO: > > This was obviously written for Tomcat 3 and never > updated for Tomcat 4.1.29.
Do you mean this HOWTO:
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.1-doc/jk2/jk/iishowto.html
??
It specifically mentions the changes since Tomcat 3.3 (with respect to 4.x and 5.x). Here's an example:
"
The ajp12 has been deprecated with Tomcat 3.3.x and you should use instead ajp13 which is the only ajp protocol known by Tomcat 4.0.x, 4.1.x and 5.
Of course Tomcat 3.2.x and 3.3.x also support ajp13 protocol. "
> [I can't figure out workers, and I find the workers HOWTO to be > worthless. By the way, what is a worker?]
I find that this document is very helpful for these types of questions:
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.1-doc/jk2/jk/workershowto.html
It explains pretty much every line of the workers.properties file.
I hit 10 errors and stopped logging. These indicate huge problems and this document should have never been included in the Tomcat 4.1.29 release. Not even as a guidline. It is more misleading than useful.
I think it's a better guideline that the source code for the connector, don't you think?
1) Completely skips the obvious first steps: -
From the "Worker HOWTO" referenced eariler:
" worker.list =<a comma separated list of worker names> "
There's even an example!
Step 2:
"
After defining the workers you can also specify properties for them. Properties can be specified in the following manner:
worker.<worker name>.<property>=<property value> "
(Before I go on, I'll mention that there's a complete example workers.prperties file included in the "Worker HOWTO".
2) Introduction is completely accurate yet, completely inadequate. What is the relationship of a worker instance to a URL?
There is none. You have to map these yourself. You do this in the configuration for your specific web server. Check the "IIS Howto" (mentioned previously):
"
Adding a context to the ISAPI redirector is simple, all you need to do is to edit your uriworkermap.properties and to add a line that looks like:
/context/*=worker_name "
> What is a Tomcat context?
You're kidding, right? You're trying to couple IIS to Tomcat and you need a Context tutorial?
Where is the referal to a document that can explain these things ( the file "Tomcat: A Minimalistic User's Guide", is not found)?
RTFM: http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat
4) "Workers Type" is almost meaningless in light of item 3. Sometimes, stating the obvious, at least once, is a good thing.
How about this for obvious: (from the Workers HOWTO)
"
worker . worker name . type =<worker type> Where worker name is the name assigned to the worker and the worker type is one of the four types defined in the table (a worker name may not contain any space (a good naming convention for queue named should follow the Java variable naming rules).
# Defines a worker named "local" that uses the ajpv12 protocol to # forward requests to a Tomcat process. worker.local.type=ajp12
# Defines a worker named "remote" that uses the ajpv13 protocol to # forward requests to a Tomcat process. worker.remote.type=ajp13
# Defines a worker named "fast" that uses JNI to forward requests to # a Tomcat process. worker.fast.type=jni
# Defines a worker named "loadbalancer" that loadbalances several # Tomcat processes transparently.
worker.loadbalancer.type=lb "
Looks pretty straightforward to me. Which style of connector do you want to use? JNI? LoadBalanced? Not sure? Well, remember back in the IIS HOWTO:
" Who support ajp protocols ?
The ajp12 protocol is only available in Tomcat 3.2.x and 3.3.x.
The ajp12 has been deprecated with Tomcat 3.3.x and you should use instead ajp13 which is the only ajp protocol known by Tomcat 4.0.x, 4.1.x and 5.
Of course Tomcat 3.2.x and 3.3.x also support ajp13 protocol. "
That sounds like a great case for using the "ajp13" type.
5) "Setting Worker Properties" Same complaint as item 4.
As you so frequently mention, Windoze people have been using properties files since the days of "Windows For Workgroups". If you have a worker, let's call him "roeland", you define properties like this:
worker.roeland.property = value
Pretty simple, eh?
What properties do you want to set to what values? Read the Workers HOWTO to figure out what properties might be applicable.
7) The discussion of JNI properties should include a one paragraph description of what JNI is.
google JNI
Guess what: the Tomcat connector doesn't give you a tutorial on the Java programming language either.
8) "Classpath" - There is no tomcat.jar file to be found anywhere in the 4.1.29 directory tree.
That's correct. A legitimate complaint! Hey, someone change that path in the HOWTO!
9) All references to "*\jre\bin\classic" are
broken. Such a path does not exist in the tomcat
4.1.29 directory tree.
Right you are! That puppy comes with the JRE, not Tomcat.
Here's one thing you're right about: the documentation for the JNI connector is quite confusing and out of date. It's probably not well kept because pretty much nobody uses it. We should also mention that in the HOWTO.
Look. Instead of getting all pissed off and venting all your issues to the newsgroup, why not express your frustration in a (shorter) post and ask for some help. Also, check the group archives. There's a lot of stuff in there that hasn't been distilled into a HOWTO, mostly because (and I must reiterate) people aren't getting paid to do this.
If you really feel like it would cost your company less money to hire a contractor to come in and do this task, consider hiring someone like me. I'll be glad to do it for you. Are you in the Washington, D.C. area perhaps?
-chris
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