Tomcat admin tools?

Question

I've worked with WebSphere, WebLogic, JBoss, and other app servers in the past. Now, I'm working on an app that will be deployed using Tomcat 6.x. While I prefer using the command line or XML config files, there are times when a good administrative console comes in handy. I've looked at the admin console that Tomcat comes with and found it to be very light. Does anyone know of any more advanced admin consoles or tools for Tomcat?

Ideally, I'd like something web-based, that provides the ability to:

• Deploy/Start/Stop applications
• Create new resources, such as Database resources
• Administer users/groups and registries (LDAP, Active Directory, etc.)
• View logs
• Get usage/performance data

Any recommendations?

Answer 1

If you're looking at Tomcat Administration, there are two different consoles. It's not clear which one you were looking at.

Tomcat's Manager is a quick web interface to start, stop, add, and remove web applications. It also supports some light data gathering information, including such basics as JVM version, system information, and memory usage. It typically needs to be configured for access by adding users with the appropriate permissions in most distributions.

Tomcat's Admin console is quite a bit more than Tomcat's Manager console. It includes the ability to manage security domains, users, etc. It typically needs to be installed as a secondary web application in most distributions.

Which of the two have you looked at, or have you seen both?

--- Edited after response indicating lack of admin webapp in 6.0 ---

Apparently it was removed due to lack of maintenance and diversion of effort into the JMX management extensions in Tomcat 6.0. Some people indicate that the JMX controls are sufficent, but lacks any user-friendliness in it's interface.

I wager that you have either seen the JMX extensions and found them lacking, or you haven't taken a peek yet. Either way, it seems a few people didn't find the JMX extensions to their taste, so your case might find them lacking too. Perhaps a quick investigation will let you know if they are sufficient.

There is a product which was recommended to one of the people lamenting the loss of the Admin webapp. It is called Lambda Probe, and it might support Tomcat 6.0. The documentation only states it supports Tomcat 5.0 and 5.5, but this post indicates that it works with Tomcat 6.0 too.

Thank you for the heads up about the Tomcat 6.0 monitoring. Since 5.5, direct editing of the XML files has kept me from looking into the less manual tool sets.