Tomcat - redirect old context root to new context root

Question

We want to change the context root of a Tomcat web appplication and have the old URL guide users to the newly named application.

http://hostname/oldappname
http://hostname/newappname

One way to do this would be deploy the application with a context root of newappname and another application with a context root of oldappname and have it guide users to the new URL.

This simple option is not open to us, internal company policy prevents the running of multiple applications in the same instance of Tomcat (not negotiable).

I remember GlassFish has the concept of an "Alternate document root" that could be used to give an application multiple context roots, any idea how to do this in Tomcat ?

Answer 1

There is a Dir called ROOT under tomcat/webapps.

This ROOT "app" ends up getting invoked for those URLs that have "contextPath" different from the Directories under Webapps folder.

So you could:

1. Create folder called "oldappname" directly under the "ROOT" folder.

2. Create an index.html in that "oldappname" folder, and make it have a Javascript to Redirect Browser to the new URL.

Whenever the browser invokes http://servername/oldappname , tomcat will render: webapps/ROOT/oldappname/index.html

UPDATE:

You could do some interesting things with ROOT:

Tomcat 6: How to change the ROOT application

https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/context.html