Book excerpt: It takes a book as versatile as its subject to cover Apache Tomcat, the popular open source Servlet and JSP container and high performance web server. Tomcat: The Definitive Guide is a valuable reference for administrators and webmasters, a useful guide for programmers who want to use Tomcat as their web application server during development or in production, and an excellent introduction for anyone interested in Tomcat. Updated for the latest version of Tomcat, this new edition offers a complete guide to installing, configuring, maintaining and securing this servlet container. In fact, with such a wealth of new information, this is essentially a new book rather than a simple revision. You will find details for using Tomcat on all major platforms, including Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD, along with specifics on Tomcat configuration files, and step-by-step advice for deploying and running web applications. This book offers complete information for: Installation and startup procedures Configuring Tomcat-including realms, roles, users, servlet sessions, and JNDI resources including JDBC DataSources Deploying web applications-individual servlets and JSP pages, and web application archive files Tuning Tomcat to measure and improve performance Integrating Tomcat with Apache Web Server Securing Tomcat to keep online thugs at bay Tomcat configuration files-server.xml and web.xml, and more Debugging and Troubleshooting-diagnosing problems with Tomcat or a web application Compiling your own Tomcat, rather than using the pre-built release Running two or more Tomcat servlet containers in parallel This book also offers an overview of the Tomcat open source project's community resources, including docs, mailing lists, and more. Community interest fueled a strong demand for a Tomcat guide from O'Reilly. The result clearly exceeds expectations.