MySql driver not found in WEB-INF/lib

Question

Hello
This topic is very often met on this forum but there are no
suitable answers for the problem I have. I am creating
a Jsf application and I have setup a connection pool using
the MySql jar. I want to supply the jar with the war and I keep
it in WEB-INF/lib directory but I still get ClassNotFoundException.
I am running this on a Debian machine with Sun JVM 1.5,
Tomcat 5.0, Mysql 4.1, Connector/J - nightly build from
20060403 (since the stable version has bugs with Charset).
Here are the confings. If I missed some of them, pleaste tell
me.
War task in build.xml
    <target name="war" depends="build">
      <mkdir dir="${build.dir}"/>
      <war
        basedir="${webroot.dir}"
        warfile="${build.dir}/${project.distname}.war"
        webxml="${webinf.dir}/web.xml">
        <metainf dir="${meta.dir}">
          <include name="context.xml"/>
        </metainf>
        <exclude name="WEB-INF/${build.dir}/**"/>
        <exclude name="WEB-INF/src/**"/>
        <exclude name="WEB-INF/web.xml"/>
      </war>
    </target>
context.xml
<Context  path="/jsfblog" docBase="jsfblog.war" reloadable="false" crossContext="true" useNaming="true">
  <Resource name="jdbc/jsfblog" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
  <ResourceParams name="jdbc/jsfblog">
    <parameter>
      <name>factory</name>
      <value>org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory</value>
    </parameter>
    <parameter>
      <name>url</name>
      <value>jdbc:mysql://localhost/jsfblog</value>
    </parameter>
    <parameter>
      <name>driverClassName</name><value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
    </parameter>
    <parameter>
      <name>username</name>
      <value>blog</value>
    </parameter>
    <parameter>
      <name>password</name>
      <value>blog</value>
    </parameter>
    <parameter>
      <name>maxWait</name>
      <value>3000</value>
    </parameter>
    <parameter>
      <name>maxIdle</name>
      <value>100</value>
    </parameter>
    <parameter>
      <name>maxActive</name>
      <value>10</value>
    </parameter>
  </ResourceParams>
</Context>
hibernate.cfg.xml
<hibernate-configuration>
    <session-factory>
        <property name="connection.datasource">java:comp/env/jdbc/jsfblog</property>
        <property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
        <property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property>
        <property name="cache.provider_class">org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider</property>
        <property name="show_sql">true</property>
        <mapping resource="......"/>
    </session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>
web.xml
I am not sure if I really need this.
<web-app>
  <!-- Connection pool configuration  -->
  <resource-ref>
    <description>JSF Blog Database</description>
    <res-ref-name>jdbc/jsfblog</res-ref-name>
    <res-ref-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-ref-type>
    <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
  </resource-ref>
  <!--  jsf and facelets declarations  -->
jsfblog.policy
Not all the rules apply at the same time. I also tried to
setup the mysql jar in ${catalina.home}/common/lib
directory and it was loaded but I need to make it work
in WEB-INF/lib location.
grant
     permission java.io.FilePermission "${catalina.home}/webapps/jsfblog/WEB-INF/lib/mysql-connector-java-3.1.12-bin.jar", "read";
     permission java.io.FilePermission "${catalina.home}/webapps/jsfblog/WEB-INF/lib/mysql-connector-java-3.1-nightly-20060403-bin.jar", "read";
     permission java.net.SocketPermission "localhost:3306", "connect,resolve";
grant codeBase "jar:file:${catalina.home}/webapps/jsfblog/WEB-INF/lib/hibernate3.jar!/-" {
     permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessDeclaredMembers";
     permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read,write";
     permission java.lang.reflect.ReflectPermission "suppressAccessChecks";
grant codeBase "jar:file:${catalina.home}/webapps/jsfblog/WEB-INF/lib/mysql-connector-java-3.1-nightly-20060403-bin.jar!/-"
     permission java.net.SocketPermission "localhost:3306", "connect,resolve";
     permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessDeclaredMembers";
     permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read,write";
     permission java.lang.reflect.ReflectPermission "suppressAccessChecks";
Project layout
|-- build
|   `-- jsfblog.war
|-- build.xml
|-- conf
|   `-- 99jsfblog.policy
|-- deploy
|   `-- jsfblog.war
|-- doc
|   |-- WEB-INF
|   |   |-- classes
|   |   |   |-- beans
|   |   |   |   `-- CategoryBean.class
|   |   |   |-- blog
|   |   |   |   |-- Category.class
|   |   |   |   |-- Category.hbm.xml
|   |   |   |   |-- Comment.class
|   |   |   |   |-- Comment.hbm.xml
|   |   |   |   |-- Post.class
|   |   |   |   `-- Post.hbm.xml
|   |   |   |-- hibernate.cfg.xml
|   |   |   |-- log4j.properties
|   |   |   `-- util
|   |   |       |-- HibernateSessionFactory.class
|   |   |       |-- HibernateUtil.class
|   |   |       `-- Service.class
|   |   |-- faces-config.xml
|   |   |-- lib
|   |   |   |-- antlr-2.7.5.jar
|   |   |   |-- asm-attrs.jar
|   |   |   |-- asm.jar
|   |   |   |-- cglib-2.1.3.jar
|   |   |   |-- common-annotations.jar
|   |   |   |-- commons-beanutils.jar
|   |   |   |-- commons-collections-2.1.1.jar
|   |   |   |-- commons-digester.jar
|   |   |   |-- commons-lang.jar
|   |   |   |-- commons-logging-1.0.4.jar
|   |   |   |-- commons-validator.jar
|   |   |   |-- dom4j-1.6.1.jar
|   |   |   |-- el-api.jar
|   |   |   |-- el-ri.jar
|   |   |   |-- hibernate3.jar
|   |   |   |-- jsf-api.jar
|   |   |   |-- jsf-facelets.jar
|   |   |   |-- jsf-impl.jar
|   |   |   |-- jsf-tlds.jar
|   |   |   |-- jstl.jar
|   |   |   |-- jta.jar
|   |   |   |-- log4j-1.2.11.jar
|   |   |   |-- mysql-connector-java-3.1-nightly-20060403-bin.jar
|   |   |   `-- standard.jar
|   |   `-- web.xml
|   |-- admin
|   |   |-- admintemplate.xhtml
|   |   |-- category.xhtml
|   |   |-- index.xhtml
|   |   `-- skeleton.xhtml
|   |-- index.jsp
|   `-- layout.css
|-- lib
|   `-- servlet.jar
|-- meta
|   `-- context.xml
`-- src
    |-- beans
    |   `-- CategoryBean.java
    |-- blog
    |   |-- Category.hbm.xml
    |   |-- Category.java
    |   |-- Comment.hbm.xml
    |   |-- Comment.java
    |   |-- Post.hbm.xml
    |   `-- Post.java
    |-- hibernate.cfg.xml
    |-- log4j.properties
    `-- util
        `-- HibernateUtil.javaAnd, finally, the error message:
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
     at org.apache.catalina.loader.StandardClassLoader.loadClass(StandardClassLoader.java:854)
     at org.apache.catalina.loader.StandardClassLoader.loadClass(StandardClassLoader.java:721)
     at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(ClassLoader.java:319)
     at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
     at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:164)
     at org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource.createDataSource(BasicDataSource.java:760)
     ... 60 moreI don't really understand how I can setup the CLASSPATH in this
context. So there should be something else. Does anyone have an
idea?
Thanks.
Igor

Answer 1

This is what I achived using the <metainf> tags from
war task in build.xml. Look at the first code
listing. The
magic code is:
<metainf dir="${meta.dir}">
<include name="context.xml"/>
</metainf>where ${meta.dir} is defined as ./meta and there
resides
the context.xml file (look at the project layout).Very good, thanks.
Any guesses why Tomcat is not loading mysql jar from
WEB-INF/lib directory?No. 8(
My understanding is that JARs in the WEB-INF/lib are visible only to your web app. Those in /common/lib are visible to all apps and the container. Those in /server/lib are visible only to the container and no apps. It SHOULD work from WEB-INF/lib. I've done it that way, but it was an older version of Tomcat.
Checked the Tomcat docs. They say to put it in /common/lib, but they don't explicitly forbid it in WEB-INF/lib.
I'll try a simpler example.
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