Connecting Apache with tomcat using modjk

Apache HTTP and Tomcat are web servers meant for different purposes. While Apache HTTP can be used to serve static (html) and dynamic (cgi/perl) contents ,  tomcat is used to serve Java pages (jsp/servlets). We can link both Apache HTTP & Apache Tomcat using modjk (connector):

What can you do by linking them both?

1. Effectively serve both static (html) and dynamic (jsp/servlet) pages.
2. Load balance/Cluster between two or more tomcat services.

There may be more ....

I did the installation in CentOS 4.4 (32bit). I installed Apache http (rpm) using yum. I assume that you have already installed Tomcat.

Below is the tutorial:

# yum install httpd httpd-devel (httpd-devel is needed to install any module in httpd)
# wget http://apache.siamwebhosting.com/tomcat/tomcat-connectors/jk/source/jk-1.2.26/tomcat-connectors-1.2.26-src.tar.gz (download any latest version).
# wget http://www.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-connectors/jk/source/jk-1.2.26/tomcat-connectors-1.2.26-src.tar.gz.md5 (md5 check sum for the above).

Check if you have downloaded a genuine package
# md5sum tomcat-connectors-1.2.26-src.tar.gz (This must be equal to the sum downloaded with the second wget).

# tar zfxv tomcat-connectors-1.2.26-src.tar.gz
# cd tomcat-connectors-1.2.26-src
# cd native
# ./configure --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs
# make
# make install

# cd /etc/httpd/conf/
# cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.orig (I always keep a copy of the original).
# vi httpd.conf

Add the following code below the LoadModule section.

# Load mod_jk
# 
LoadModule jk_module modules/mod_jk.so

# Configure mod_jk
#
JkWorkersFile conf/workers.properties
JkLogFile logs/mod_jk.log
JkLogLevel info

JkMount *.jsp test   <- This must be the worker name you give in workers.properties. This will at(many) times go into your Virtual Host configuration.

Save and Exit.

# cd /etc/httpd/conf/
# vi workers.properties (create new file and paste the below code)

# workers.properties
#

# In Unix, we use forward slashes:
ps=/

# list the workers by name

worker.list=test

# ------------------------
# First tomcat server
# ------------------------
worker.test.port=8009
worker.test.host=localhost
worker.test.type=ajp13

#
# END workers.properties
#

Restart apache. Now you can access tomcat through apache. Any request to jsp files will go to test-tomcat.

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