MochaHost

Java Application Container

What Java application container do they offer? Most J2EE/J2SE Java applications will run well on a Tomcat application container. While some may need access to specific J2EE features and require J2EE specific applications such as WildFly, GlassFish, etc.

It’s important you verify all these to make sure you’re getting the right solution.

Free Websites Look Unprofessional

Let’s face it, free websites are just plain sloppy. For starters, your domain name is attached to the name of the provider. Right off the bat, this leads people to believe that you don’t care enough about your brand to spend a little money on a unique domain.

In addition to providing you with a professional domain name, paid services offer an unlimited number of branded email addresses. Instead of sending business-related emails from a hard to remember personal address, you can create email accounts that use your company name to send out promotional materials and respond to customer questions.

PermGen Space

In brief, the JVM heap memory is structured into regions, called generations and there is also some separate heap space called permanent generation.

Some Java objects are stored in this generation space permanently as well as class definitions and static instances. So it’s important to have enough PermGen space in order to avoid the dreaded OutOfMemoryError: PermGen Space error message.

So it’s important to have a good amount of PermGen. Most Java web hosts will give you higher JVM Heap size but greatly limit your PermGen so bear this mind.

7 reasons you shouldn’t consider free java hosting

In today’s world, if you don’t have a website for your business, you’re practically irrelevant. That’s why so many people turn to free Java hosting providers. But if you’re trying to run a serious business, build a professional portfolio, or run a successful blog CMS based on Java, you might want to rethink that free Java server hosting.

Compared to paid hosting, free web hosting is extremely limited, especially when it comes to one with Java support. If your goals include increasing site traffic, monetizing your website, or impressing a potential employer, it’s more than worth it to pay a few dollars each month for the additional features and level of professionalism that a free Java Servlets service can provide.

Application context scanner

The default scanner creates a new Context for each directory that:

An example has been provided in the sections above.

Application reloads

Tomcat might pick some changes automatically. E.g. new or updated JSP or class files. It usually decides which files have been updated by checking their modified time . E.g. if a JSP page has a newer modified time than its corresponding pre-compiled class file Tomcat re-compiles it.

If some changes are not picked up you might need to restart the service.Note that some changes might be ignored even on Tomcat restart. If this happens to you you might want to switch on the option «Clean work directory on service start» and retry the restart.

Connecting to a database from your tomcat web app

Here’s an example for MySQL which you can place in e.g. test.jsp:

Database connection pooling

We do not recommend using connection pooling in our environment since the connection establishment to the DB is very lightweight process.

Just close the DB connections when you’re finished with them and reopen them when needed.

A request scope is an excellent lifespan for a DB connection.

Be especially careful when reusing pooled connections since the RDBMS might be configured to timeout inactive connections and you might encounter:

java.sql.SQLException: No operations allowed after connection closed

Default host configuration

Each Host element in Tomcat’s server.xml config file is configured like this by default:

deployXML="true" - customizations in META-INF/context.xml are supported
deployOnStartup="false" - Do not do application discovery on startup. Only apps configured in server.xml are deployed.
autoDeploy="false" - No deployment of new apps placed in appBase while Tomcat is running.
unpackWARs="false" - Do not extract WAR files automatically

This are settings which are suitable for production use.

As already mentioned you can provide your own server.xml if e.g. you insist on deploying from WAR files.

Deployment of new web applications

If you upload your application while the service is running its contents might be available via the ROOT context.

Note: This description is for the unmodified configuration of My App Server. You are free to modify the service as needed.

Documentroot and appbase

Tomcat calls the root directory of a domain or subdomain «application base» ( appBase config option of a Host element in server.xml ).

How to choose the best java web host

A Java web developer’s web hosting server reflects his or her work! Let’s fact it, you have worked very hard to write the best optimal Java codes for your web app.

Is this a private jvm ?

What this service offers can be considered a Private JVM or Private Tomcat . It actually offers more than what others include in these terms as My App Server is designed to be very flexible and can run anything, not just predefined versions of JVM/Tomcat .

Java mail

In order to send mail from your Tomcat web app you can use the following settings:

Jvm modifications

You can upload your own JVM and modify it as needed.Modifications to the global JVMs ( those pre-installed on the server ) are not allowed.

Please note that some modifications might by denied by law — e.g. use of strong cryptography is not allowed in some countries. It is up-to you to obey such restrictions.

Jvm versions

There are pre-configured JVM versions which can be chosen when initializing the MyAppServer service. Your Tomcat instance is then pre-configured to use the chosen JVM version.

If you need though you can run any JVM version. If it is not available on your hosting server you can upload it and edit the following files:

my_appserv/envdir/JAVA_HOME
my_appserv/envdir/JAVA_OPTS

These are symlinks by default, so you might need to remove them and create new files on their place.

Make sure to specify the full(absolute) path to the JVM, not a relative one.

Manager and hostmanager tomcat apps

These are not enabled by default.

If you need them you can enable them by either:

Production-grade java hosting solution

JavaPipe is an old hand at enterprise-level Java platform and VPS hosting, our specialty being Java hosting with MySQL (using MariaDB) on a Cloud platform with anytime money-back gurantee during the first month, which many hosting companies and hosting providers don’t offer.

The underlying operating system is based on Linux, because Linux guarantees stability over Windows, a high level of performance, latest Java technologies and tons of features. We like to think that our solution is easier to manage than other hosting solutions, such as VPS hosting or dedicated servers.

While there are many ways to skin a (tom)cat, we like to think our way is the right way, which is why we offer a no questions asked money back guarantee.

We have thousands of satisfied customers who are choosing hosting their apps’ content on our Java web hosting services and a passion for constantly improving our services, their features, and their uptime. Our hosting reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

Our goal is to provide you with the best affordable JSP hosting services and additional options for your Java app through our specialized Java 7, 8 and 9 hosting services on a redundant SSD cloud platform with private JVM.

Most Java web hosting providers offer only shared JVM hosting services and only few features and common hard disk space and low bandwidth, which comes with many restrictions and often a questionable uptime, while with a private JVM on a shared server you get a vanilla Tomcat installation which you can do with whatever you want.

A powerful private Tomcat instance has many advantages over a shared container and we don’t only recommend it for Java development, but for anyone hosting Java-based web sites. You have complete control online over the whole installation and are able to run any framework and Java program on our Java web hosting.

Apache Tomcat is the most popular and widely used implementation of the Java Servlet specification on the open-source market today to host Java Servlets.

Originally developed by Sun Microsystems, known as Jakarta and was donated to the Apache Software Foundation in 1999, Apache has continued to develop and improve upon its feature set and stability. It became the most popular solution for code written in the Java programming language (not to confuse with JavaScript).

Read/write/delete files on the file system

You should be extra carefull when using relative paths. They can be relative to something different than what you expect.

In order to check a relative path you can place a code like this in e.g. test.jsp:

The directories which you see when you login via FTP or in the Plesk File manager are relative to the subscription home dir.

Here’s an example of an absolute path:

Tomcat logs

Tomcat logs can be found in my_appserv/default/logs directory:

catalina.out - STDOUT & STDERR of the start script are redirected to this log
catalina.stop - STDOUT & STDERR of the stop script are redirected to this log
watchdog.log - STDOUT & STDERR of the WatchDog are redirected to this log

Note: This description is for the unmodified configuration of My App Server. You are free to modify the service as needed.

Tomcat manager access

Manager is a custom web-based interface for monitoring your statistics. It also includes top of the line tools for deploying your WAR files and stopping and starting individual applications.

Tomcat modifications

As you might have already guessed — all custom modifications to Tomcat are allowed. E.g. you can:

When initializing the service via the dropdowns Tomcat is pre-configured like this:

conf/server.xml -> server.xml.lhs_generated
conf/server.xml.lhs_generated

The bin/start script generates the file server.xml.lhs_generated which is based on the domains with activated MyAppServer support and the applications which are found in their directory structure.

If you need you can replace the conf/server.xml symlink with the modified server.xml which you need.

Tomcat security manager

Tomcat’s security manager is NOT enabled in the default configuration as its default security policy imposes some restrictions which prevent some applications from working correctly.

If you application recommends using a security manager you can enable it and customize the security policy.

Type of java web hosting environments

When it comes to hosting a Java web application, there are several options available to you and we’re going to take a look at some of them.

War files

WAR stands for Web application ARchive .

WAR files must be extracted in order to be deployed. E.g. the contents of test.war should be placed in a directory named test.

Note: This description is for the unmodified configuration of My App Server. You are free to modify the service as needed.

You can provide a custom server.xml to support deployments from WAR files.

While Tomcat can run an app directly from a WAR without unpacking it we strongly advise against such configuration as it is very likely that it will lead to a vastly degraded performance.

Tomcat can auto extract your WARs if you set unpackWARs=»true» for the respective Host .

What is java server pages (jsp)?

JSP technology is an offset of Java and a server-side programming language that allows you create Java web applications that are dynamic, database-driven and platform independent.

It’s allows for the inclusion of Java code and certain predefined actions into a web markup language such as HTML or XML. The resulting page is then compiled and executed on the server side.

Also, a JSP can be thought as a high-level abstraction of Java Servlets since they are translated into servlets at runtime.

When using JSP you do get access to the entire set of Java APIs as well as JDBC APIs to access databases locally and remotely. And like any Java applications, JSP are executed inside the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

What is java?

To understand hosting for Java programming language based websites, you have to understand Java. It is a popular programming language used by more than 9 million developers worldwide. It’s come a long way since its introduction in 1995. Today, major companies like Amazon, Google, and eBay use Java in their site architecture. It’s hard to find a website that doesn’t use Java in some form or another.

What is the difference between java hosting and javascript?

It’s important to note that Java is commonly confused with another popular programming language called JavaScript, but the two couldn’t be any more different. One of the main differences is that JavaScript is a scripting language, not a programming language like Java.

Where should you place your tomcat web apps

Tomcat web apps should you placed directly in the DocumentRoot.

Initial service initialization via the dropdowns

The provided Tomcat versions are the stock ones — these are the ones available from the official Apache Tomcat website.The modifications which are made to them are only in the config files:

conf/context.xml
conf/logging.properties
conf/server.xml

If a file is modified the original are kept with an .orig extension, e.g. conf/server.xml.orig . This is done in order the changes to be easily trackable by you or an operator.