I use Apache Tomcat (5.5.9) to host the website (xyz.com) along with a
couple of sub-domains (photos.xyz.com and documents.xyz.com). You can find
the relevant portion of server.xml file below.
Hosting the websites in this way has lead to two main headaches.
1. I cannot share my Java code between xyz.com, photos.xyz.com and
documents.xyz.com:
For example, if I have written a simple Java Bean Class and its deployed in
Tomcat/webapps/xyz/WEB-INF/classes, the Class is not available to
photos.xyz.com and documents.xyz.com. The only way to make it available to
all three domains is deploying the Java Bean class in Tomcat/shared/lib or
Tomcat/common/lib directories.
2. Problems with session sharing across the domain (xyz.com) and its
sub-domains:
For example, when a user performs a search on xyz.com, I store the search
results in a Java Bean Object in the session. Lets say the user clicks on
one of the search results and ends up on a page at documents.xyz.com. Here I
won't have access to the Search Results Java Bean object, which I would love
to have.
These two problems should be pretty common, right? I am wondering how should
I structure my application(s) to take care of the above two. Please advise!
Thank you,
Kristin
/* server.xml */
<Host name="xyz.com" appBase="webapps">
<Context path="" docbase="xyz">
</Context>
</Host>
<Host name="photos.xyz.com" appBase="webapps">
<Context path="" docbase="photos">
</Context>
</Host>
<Host name="documents.xyz.com" appBase="webapps">
<Context path="" docbase="documents">
</Context>
</Host>
