Tcat Server supports a feature named server profiles that offers an automated way to apply file changes and environment variable settings changes to one or more Tcat or Tomcat installations, and a central point of administration and storage of these changes.

1. MULE TCAT SERVER
SERVER PROFILES
Shanky

2. INTRODUCTION
• Tcat Server supports a feature named server profiles that offers
an automated way to apply file changes and environment
variable settings changes to one or more Tcat or Tomcat
installations, and a central point of administration and storage
of these changes.
• The main uses for server profiles are explained in next slides.

3. 1. TOMCAT CONFIGURATION
MANAGEMENT
• Centrally manage and deploy a set of Tomcat configuration
changes, including any server configuration files and scripts
that need to be stored within the Tomcat installation tree. For
example you may want to distribute a server.xml and a
catalina.properties file together to several Tomcat installations,
and automate applying those changes each time you modify
these files.

4. 2. SERVER STARTUP ENVIRONMENT
SETTINGS
• A consistent, automated, and repeatable mechanism for
centrally setting and applying server environment variable
settings, including setting JVM startup switches and system
properties in the JAVA_OPTS environment variable.

5. 3. MISCELLANEOUS FILE DEPLOYMENT
• Any files that are not part of a web application, and not part of
Tomcat, but must be deployed onto the server may be centrally
managed and stored using the Tcat Server console, and
deployed into the Tcat or Tomcat installation directory tree
using a server profile. For example, if your webapp(s) use a
container-managed database connection pool that is built into
Tomcat, place the JDBC driver into Tomcat’s lib directory, which
is outside of the webapps.

6. • Tcat Server implements a mechanism to deploy, redeploy, and
undeploy web application files to one or more servers, but
when you need to distribute consistent Tomcat configuration
changes to one or more servers, you may use server profiles. In
some cases you may need to separate your webapp context
configuration from your webapp files, and in that case you may
use a server profile to deploy your configuration changes.
• You may use Server profile environment variables to add to the
beginning or end of any value that each server already has. For
example, you may apply a server profile that adds an additional
configuration file and also adds a system property definition to
the end of the server’s JAVA_OPTS environment variable.

7. HOW TO USE SERVER PROFILES – STEP 1
• Here are steps you may follow to create a new server profile and
apply it to your servers:
• Step 1: Create a workspace to hold your server profile’s files and
directories:
• Click the top-level Repository tab.
• Click the Profiles workspace link to navigate into the server profiles
workspace.
• Click the New Workspace button and type in a workspace name for your
server profile. This name can be any free-form text name, but it should
be short and clearly convey the name of the server profile.
• Add any files and directories to your server profile by uploading them
into your server profile’s workspace. Files that you place in the root
directory of your workspace are written to the root of your Tomcat’s
installation (CATALINA_BASE). So, for example, if you wanted to include

8. HOW TO USE SERVER PROFILES – STEP 2
• Step 2: Create a server profile, give it a name, and select the workspace
you created in Step 1:
• Click the top-level Administration tab.
• Click the Server Profiles link on the left (under the Manage heading).
• Click New. This brings up the new server profile form.
• Type in a name for your server profile – this should be a short name
that you want shown in the Tcat console when applying and showing
your server profile. Also, type in a description that describes the goal of
your server profile, and also important information and notes about its
contents, such as the versions of the software it contains, the version(s)
of Tomcat it may be applied to, the operating systems it is meant to
support, etc.
• Select the workspace that contains your server profile’s files and
directories.

9. HOW TO USE SERVER PROFILES – STEP 3
• Step 3: Set any environment variable values in your server profile.
Not every server profile requires environment variable settings,
but if yours does, you can set them:
• Click the Add Variable button.
• Enter the name of the environment variable (without the preceding
dollar sign or percent sign) by clicking into the environment variable’s
name field.
• Enter the value for the environment variable, keeping in mind that when
you apply the server profile to a server, the server may already have this
variable set. You may want to reference the server’s existing value in
your server profile’s environment variable value (otherwise your server
profile’s value is used, and the server’s own value is lost). For example
you may set JAVA_OPTS to add a JVM startup switch to the end of the
existing value of JAVA_OPTS with a value like "${JAVA_OPTS} -
Xmx2048m".

10. HOW TO USE SERVER PROFILES – STEP 4
• Step 4: Apply your server profile to your servers:
• Navigate to the top-level Servers tab, then click the All link on the left. This
shows you the list of all of your servers.
• Select each of the servers that you wish to apply your new server profile to.
You may want to apply it to just one server first, to test it, but later you may
apply it to two or more servers at the same time from this screen.
• Click the Set Profile button on the top right. This pulls down a list of the server
profiles that your console has.
• Select your new server profile, and it applies remotely to each of the servers
you selected. Some server profiles require a restart of the server JVM in order
for the changes to take effect. For example, if you add environment variable
settings, or if you add something that Tomcat must find and load at JVM
startup time. If so, click the Restart button to restart the affected servers
whenever you are ready for the server profile to take effect. Without restarting
the JVM, the files and changes from your server profile already store on each of
the servers, so these changes pick up whenever those files next load and are
used.
• To see which server profile is applies to a server, select the server and then

11. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
• Servers have environment variable settings, and server profiles can
have environment variable settings. When Tcat Server applies the
server profile to the server, the server profile’s environment variable
settings are merged into the server’s environment variable settings.
The merging is done such that there is a way to override the server
profile’s values at the server level, so that it is possible to have a
server profile applied to many servers and have a different
environment variable value on one of the servers. The following table
shows how Tcat Server merges the environment variables and values
when applying a server profile:

12. Server Profile Env Var
Setting
Server’s Env Var
Setting
Merged Setting
(undefined) MY_VAR=one two MY_VAR=one two
MY_VAR=three (undefined) MY_VAR=three
MY_VAR=three MY_VAR=one two MY_VAR=one two
MY_VAR=${MY_VAR}
three
MY_VAR=one two MY_VAR=one two three
MY_VAR=three
${MY_VAR}
MY_VAR=one two MY_VAR=three one two

13. • The server’s environment variable setting takes precedence,
but the server profile’s value may reference and include the
server’s value into its own value.
• In addition to supporting referencing the server’s same-
variable value, you may reference other environment variables,
JVM system properties, and conditionally set values in your
server profile’s environment variable values. This makes server
profiles more programmable and multi-platform, and allows
you to create server profiles that work on different server
operating systems, where each operating system needs
different settings that depend on the operating system.
• The below table shows some examples of environment variable
value references that Tcat Server supports (as of version 6.4.2):

14. Server Profile Env Var
Setting
Description
${java.io.tmpdir} Replace this reference with the server’s system property value.
${USER} Replace this reference with the current USER environment
variable value.
${myVariablefoo} Replace this reference with the system property named
"myVariable", or with the environment variable with that name (if
any), or with the optional default value of "foo" if neither is
defined.
${os.name=Linuxfoo} If the os.name system property is set to "Linux", replace this
reference with "foo", otherwise replace the reference with a zero-
length string. If the system property isn’t set, the environment
variable is also checked and any value is used for the
conditional.
${myProp!=myValfoo} If the myProp system property is not set to "myVal", replace this
reference with "foo", otherwise check the environment variable
named "myProp". If the conditional is found to be false, replace
the reference with a zero-length string.
${shell:myVariable} Convert this reference to a shell reference formatted for the shell
of the server’s OS, and then write that to the tcat-env.conf file.
For example ${myVariable} on non-Windows OSs and
%myVariable% on Windows.

15. SUPPORTED CONDITIONAL OPERATORS
Operator Description
=or== Equals
!= Not Equals
-sw Starts with
-ew Ends with

16. • In the conditionals, Tcat Server also supports a conditional
right hand value of "NULL", meaning a Java null.
• BASH variable value substitution syntax like "${FOO//bar/baz}"
or "${FOO//gone/}" is not processed/substituted (unless a
system property name or environment variable name happens
to match the whole thing!), and is instead returned without
modification so that a BASH shell can interpret it later.
• The merging and processing of the environment variable
references and conditionals occurs at the point when you apply
a server profile to a server. When the environment variable
settings are saved to the server’s tcat-env.conf file, all
environment variable settings are formatted for the native shell
of the server, and in doing so any file system paths are
converted to the shell’s native format as well. This, in
combination with conditional values, enables server profile

17. IMPORTING AND EXPORTING SERVER
PROFILES
• You may export your own server profiles from the Tcat Server
console into a zip file to back it up or to share it with other Tcat
Server consoles. Navigate to the server profile’s page in the
console, and click the Export button. Save your server profile to
your local hard drive. You may rename the file, it is a simple zip
file. The final file name should contain the name of the server
profile (matching the name shown in the console), and the
version number of the server profile so that people may use the
zip filename to distinguish between different revisions of the
same server profile.
• You may also import a server profile from a file, to take
advantage of automated Tomcat configuration that was created
elsewhere. Just navigate to the top-level Administration tab, then