Change the classpath in catalina.sh

Question

Hello
does anybody know how it is possible to add a classpath to the classpath defined in the catalina;sh of Tomcat?
I already tried to add it my self in a text editor, but it obviously doesn't work....
Philippe

Answer 1

1) Download the tomcat source code from apache and create a development environment that you can build tomcat from this source.
2) In the package org.apache.catalina.loader you will create your own classes. Easiest way to do this is copy the existing tomcat classes
2a) copy WebappLoader to MyWebappLoader
2b) copy WebappCLassloader to MyWebappClassLoader
3) In MyWebappLoader change:
3a) the constructors
3b)classLoader variable to be of type MyWebappClassLoader
3c) createClassLoader method to return MyWebappClassLoader type
3d) modify the setRepositories method to add new repositories you want Tomcat to check
4) In MyWebappClassLoader change:
4a) the constructors
4b) Modify the findResourceInternal(String name, String path) method to search the new repsoitories for classes
5) Edit the xml context file for your webapp to use the new class loader files you have created
<Context path="/myHello" docBase="myHello" debug="0" privileged="true">
  <Loader className="org.apache.catalina.loader.MyWebappLoader" delegate="true" reloadable="true"
   loaderCLass="org.apache.catalina.loader.MyWebappClassLoader" debug="0" />
</Context>6) add your class loader files to tomcat by putting them in the tomcat\server\classes\org\apache\catalina\loader directory
7) restart tomcat and test