Deploying Tomcat via Java Web Starr?

Question

Hello,
I'm trying to figure out if it is possible to deploy a servlet container such as Tomcat to a remote computer via Java Web Start. Here is the problem. I have a need to deploy Apache Tomcat along with a web application inside it to remote computers. The users of the computers are not very tech-savvy so installing Tomcat and deploying a web application inside it is too hard for them. So I'm wondering if this is doable via Java Web Start. If you have an alternative suggestion I appreciate that too. Please advice.
Thanks,
Mete

Answer 1

Hello Dietz,
Those are great ideas. So basically you are saying that it is possible to jar up the whole tomcat distribution in one jar file and unzip it on the client computer? For my project, all I need to be able to do is just enabling the user to double click on the Web Start desktop link and automatically start Tomcat (I'm hoping that I could launch it as a small window that hides in the corner of the desktop rather than the ugly black DOS prompt) and bring up an Internet Explorer window with the URL pointing to http://localhost:8080. And then they would shut down Tomcat by clicking the "X" close button on the little window that comes up. We need to do this in order to enable a web-based application to be used on a client computer without having to connect to the internet. We figured that the users of this application would like to be able to use the application on their laptops where they don't have internet connection.
I would really appreciate it if you could let me know how your efforts of getting Tomcat to run via Web Start went.
Thanks much,
Mete