While the jboss-service.xml file controls the Tomcat integration service, Tomcat itself has its own configuration file which guides its operation. This is the server.xml descriptor that you will find in the jbossweb-tomcat55.sar directory.
The server.xml file doesn't have a formal DTD or schema definition, so we'll just cover the major configurable elements available. The top-level element is the Server element. It should contain a Service element representing the entire web subsystem. The supported attributes are:
name: A unique name by which the service is known.
className: The name of the class that provides the service implementation.
A Service element should have one or more connectors under it. A connector configures a transport mechanism that allows clients to send requests and receive responses from the Service it is associated with. Connectors forward requests to the engine and return the results to the requesting client. Each connector is configured using Connector element. Connectors support these attributes:
className: the fully qualified name of the class of the connector implementation. The class must implement the org.apache.catalina.Connector interface. The embedded service defaults to the org.apache.catalina.connector.http.HttpConnector, which is the HTTP connector implementation.
acceptCount: This is the maximum queue length for incoming connection requests when all possible request processing threads are in use. Any requests received when the queue is full will be refused. The default value is 10.
address. For servers with more than one IP address, this attribute specifies which address will be used for listening on the specified port. By default, this port will be used on all IP addresses associated with the server.
bufferSize: This is the size (in bytes) of the buffer to be provided for input streams created by this connector. By default, buffers of 2048 bytes will be provided.
connectionTimeout: This is the number of milliseconds this connector will wait, after accepting a connection, for the request URI line to be presented. The default value is 60000 (i.e. 60 seconds).
debug: This is the debugging detail level of log messages generated by this component, with higher numbers creating more detailed output. If not specified, this attribute is set to zero (0). Whether or not this shows up in the log further depends on the log4j category org.jboss.web.tomcat.tc5.Tomcat5 threshold.
enableLookups: This is a flag that enables DNS resolution of the client hostname, as accessed via the ServletRequest.getRemoteHost method. This flag defaults to false.
maxThreads: This is the maximum number of request processing threads to be created by this connector, which therefore determines the maximum number of simultaneous requests that can be handled. If not specified, this attribute is set to 200.
maxSpareThreads: This is the maximum number of unused request processing threads that will be allowed to exist until the thread pool starts stopping the unnecessary threads. The default value is 50.
minSpareThreads: This is the number of request processing threads that will be created when this connector is first started. The connector will also make sure it has the specified number of idle processing threads available. This attribute should be set to a value smaller than that set for maxThreads. The default value is 4.
port: This is the TCP port number on which this connector will create a server socket and await incoming connections. Only one server application can listen to a particular port number on a particular IP address at a time.
proxyName: If this connector is being used in a proxy configuration, this attribute specifies the server name to be returned for calls to request.getServerName().
proxyPort: If this connector is being used in a proxy configuration, this attribute specifies the server port to be returned for calls to request.getServerPort().
redirectPort: This is the port that non-SSL requests will be redirected to when a request for content secured under a transport confidentiality or integrity constraint is received. This defaults to the standard HTTPS port of 443.
secure: This sets the ServletRequest.isSecure method value flag to indicate whether or not the transport channel is secure. This flag defaults to false.
scheme: This sets the protocol name as accessed by the ServletRequest.getScheme method. The scheme defaults to http.
tcpNoDelay: If this attribute is set to true, the TCP_NO_DELAY option will be set on the server socket, which improves performance under most circumstances. This is set to true by default.
You can find attribute descriptions in the Tomcat documentation at http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-5.5-doc/config/http.html.
Each Service must have a single Engine configuration. An engine handles the requests submitted to a service via the configured connectors. The child elements supported by the embedded service include Host, Logger, Valve and Listener. The supported attributes include:
className: This is the fully qualified class name of the org.apache.catalina.Engine interface implementation to use. If not specifies this defaults to org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.
defaultHost: This is he name of a Host configured under the Engine that will handle requests with host names that do not match a Host configuration.
name: This is a logical name assigned to the Engine. It is used in log messages produced by the Engine.
You can find additional information on the Engine element in the Tomcat documentation at http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-5.5-doc/config/engine.html.
A Host element represents a virtual host configuration. It is a container for web applications with a specified DNS hostname. The child elements supported by the embedded service include Alias, Valve and Listener. The supported attributes include:
className: This is the fully qualified class name of the org.apache.catalina.Host interface implementation to use. If not specifies this defaults to org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.
name: This is the DNS name of the virtual host. At least one Host element must be configured with a name that corresponds to the defaultHost value of the containing Engine.
The Alias element is an optional child element of the Host element. Each Alias specifies an alternate DNS name for the enclosing Host.
You can find additional information on the Host element in the Tomcat documentation at http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-5.5-doc/config/host.html.
A Valve element configures a hook into the request processing pipeline for the web container. Valves must implement the org.apache.catalina.Valve interface. There is only one required configuration attribute:
className: This is the fully qualified class name of the org.apache.catalina.Valve interface implementation.
The most commonly used valve is the AccessLogValve, which keeps a standard HTTP access log of incoming requests. The className for the access log value is org.jboss.web.catalina.valves.AccessLogValue. The additional attributes its supports include:
directory: This is the directory path into which the access log files will be created.
pattern: This is a pattern specifier that defines the format of the log messages. It defaults to common.
prefix: This is the prefix to add to each log file name. It defaults to access_log.
suffix: This is the suffix to add to each log file name. It defaults to an empty string, meaning that no suffix will be added.
You can find additional information on the Valve element and the available valve implementations in the Tomcat documentation at http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-5.5-doc/config/valve.html.