Apache Solr: Tomcat or Jetty? - apache

I am running an instance of Apache Solr in the Jetty servlet container that came included in the example file download from Apache. I am going to use Solr to set up an enterprise search system that will search across a directory of several hundred files on a local hard drive. Is there any reason I should run Solr in Tomcat and not in the Jetty servlet container that was part of the example? I have heard Tomcat is preferred but WHY? For what purpose do I need to switch over?

Officially jetty is recommended. Because sole's test cases run against jetty.

Related

Is there any way to deploy/run Java WAR files on Apache Server (not Tomcat)?

I'm running an Apache 2.4.3 server. I've tried Googling for solutions to this, but everything just brings up Apache Tomcat servers. Unfortunately, the solutions for Tomcat don't seem to be portable, since I can't find any webapps directory, any server.xml, or the like.
So is there some method I can use to get a WAR file running on a regular Apache server? Or do I have to switch servers?

Apache and Apache Solr together

I've got a question: I came across Apache Solr as requirement for a module I'm installing and even after reading the documentation on Apache Solr's official homepage I'm still not sure whether Apache runs alongside regular Apache or does it require it own server? If it does work alongside Apache, is there any known issues/problems that I should be aware of? How would this architecture (Apache and Apache Solr) in terms of file system and serving pages? I'm sorry if the question might sound silly but I'm very new to the whole server-side programming/setup world.
You will need to install Tomcat or some other container to install Solr on a Linux box. Tomcat and Solr can be installed along side regular Apache web server, or you can use a different server.
I have done both, installed Solr on same server as well as use different server. Both work fine. It comes down to your scale, requirements, budget and other factors.
In the attached diagram1 Solr runs under Tomcat on same server as Apache web server
In the attached diagram2 Solr runs under Tomcat on different server than Apache web server. Here we have a separate server for Solr.
Let me know if you have any more questions about architecture.

When to Use Apache vs. Apache+Tomcat?

Since simply using Apache can be enough to run many Web applications, when and why do people also use Tomcat in addition to Apache?
Apache Tomcat is a webserver and Java servlet container in one, while Apache HTTPD is just a plain webserver (often with only PHP support). They use Apache Tomcat when they want be able to run Java/JSP/Servlet. It can be added to an existing Apache HTTPD / PHP setup. Or the other way round, they bring Apache HTTPD in front of Apache Tomcat to be able to have a "This site is in maintenance" page when Tomcat is been shutdown for some upgrade/maintenance.
For communication between Apache HTTPD and Apache Tomcat, the Tomcat Connector is usually been used. It's also known as mod_jk.
Maybe too late to answer.
"Apache" is the name of a foundation that write open-source software. Apache HTTPD is a web server written in portable C (when people say "Apache", they usually mean Apache HTTPD.) It mostly serves static content by itself, but there are many add-on modules (some of which come with Apache itself) that let it modify the content and also serve dynamic content written in Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, or other languages.
Tomcat is primarily a servlet/JSP container. It's written in Java. It can serve static content, too, but its main purpose is to host servlets and JSPs. Although it's possible to get Tomcat to run Perl scripts and the like, you wouldn't use Tomcat unless most of your content was Java.
It's actually possible to use both Apache and Tomcat together, so that Apache serves the static content, and Tomcat the Servlets and JSPs. Depending on various factors, this may or may not be a good idea.

Dual server deployment: PHP and Java

I need PHP for UI coding and I'll be making AJAX requests to a Java backend. I've never deployed two servers before. I'll need Apache for PHP and Tomcat for Java.
How can I do this?
You can run php through Tomcat as it is based on Apache. Here is a pretty simple tutorial to do so. http://nexus.zteo.com/2008/02/15/how-to-setup-php5-with-tomcat-5/
One possibility is to run a PHP interpreter written in Java directly in Tomcat and there is an open-source one called Quercus.
Well you can run both servers seperately but that would mean, that Tomcat will have to run on another port. You can also setup PHP with Tomcat as a CGI Script as already mentioned but I don't know if that'll offer the best performance.
In my experience the best way is to connect Tomcat with Apache is via mod_jk conenctor. You just have to tell Apache which pages to redirect to the Tomcat Server running behind it. Since you didn't give more information about your system environment I could only give you the link to the general documentation.

Is Apache Tomcat built on Apache Web Server platform?

Recently our Software Analytic provider (NETTRACKER) sent us a plugin in order to be able to capture visitors in a better way. This plugin is for Apache 1.x and Apache 2.x. They said and I quote
that since Apache Tomcat is built on Apache HTTP server the configuration of the plugin should be the same.
I have looked for a httpd.conf in our tomcat deployment but we cannot find one, the only configuration that is similar to that one is the server.xml under the /conf directory.
If someone has better information regarding these two incredible products (Apache HTTP server and Apache Tomcat) I will greatly appreciate to draw the differences.
EDIT:
In case you are curious we know that Apache Web Server and Tomcat can work together using the mod_jk option and other proxys. But this will be too complex for our deployment.
Apache Tomcat and Apache HTTP are completely different server technologies. It is impossible to use a plugin for Apache HTTP server with Tomcat.
Apache HTTP server is developed in C and so are the plug-ins. On the contrary Tomcat is now completely developed in Java. Tomcat doesn't only serve static content, but it can also serve JSP pages and servlets.
Tomcat is used for hosting Java Web Applications. It can sure serve static content - you can host a web application using only Tomcat. Secure connections are supported and the performance is also very good (comparable with the performance of HTTP server).
A plain installation of Apache serves static content. Using the appropriate plug-ins, HTTP requests can be redirected to an application server (Tomcat, JBoss, Glassfish) or a script language interpreter (PHP). With this way dynamic content can be generated. The big advantages of Apache are the numerous plug-ins available, which allows administrators to configure and monitor web sites any way they want and that is the most widespread server available. This makes it the most secure solution, since it is thoroughly tested and any discovered flaw is corrected very quickly.
The best solution would be to use Tomcat proxied by an Apache server. It isn't so difficult to set up. If you can't do this, then you can't take advantage of Apache's plug-ins.
You see this confusion all the time. Many people think that Apache is a web server where in reality it is the name of an organization that has a web server project called "The Apache HTTP Server Project". In short the web server is called HTTPD (D as in daemon or Unix process).
Tomcat is another Apache project. This project implements a Java servlet engine to serve JSP pages and servlets. Tomcat and HTTPD have nothing to do with each other. However, you can set up HTTPD and Tomcat so that they work together. This way you can have HTTPD serve all static content, do URL rewriting and much more fancy stuff that the built in Tomcat web server can't do (or can't do very well). Whenever a JSP page is requested, HTTPD will pass the request on to Tomcat. Tomcat will process the request and will hand the output back to HTTPD which in turn will send it to the client.
Apache has many interesting projects. E.g. there is also a project called Geronimo which is a Java Enterprise server (J2EE). You can e.g. choose to embed Tomcat inside Geronimo to handle requests for JSP's and servlets where Geronimo does the more enterprisy stuff (LDAP, Messaging etc.). And you guessed it probably already, you can use HTTPD as a static content server for Geronimo as well.
totally bogus. Apache httpd plugins are written in C, Tomcat is pure Java.
Tomcat is a Java servlet engine. It can be hosted under Apache or IIS or quite a number of other external facing web servers. It sounds like you may be currently running your Tomcat instance standalone...
If you serve the JSP/servlets off of port 8080 and have it do things standalone, on the same host machine that Apache is running on, this can allow you to have them loosely coupled. Having multiple web servers fielding independent requests is not recommended, especially if you want to use server-based authentication along with Apache. Typically, you have one outside facing server that shepherds everything through it... Apache does this quite well, and the plugin you mention probably relies on this type of setup (everything gets wired through Apache) for its features/capabilities, based on your brief description of it.
If you would like to serve up your Tomcat servlets under Apache, you could configure apache to forward a class of URIs to your tomcat server instances. you could achieve this type of forwarding through mod_rewrite. this is a slower option performance-wise, as it adds slight overhead on everything you server up. You could also proxy incoming requests via a CGI mechanism similarly, from Apache to Tomcat.
mod_jk will simplify deployment and increase performance for placing Tomcat into an Apache server config. It is pretty painless to configure if you follow the docs, so I am not sure what you mean by "too complex" for your deployment -- if you want Apache and have Tomcat already, it would seem only a matter of slight config changes to get mod_jk downloaded and installed.