Farm Deployer not working in Tomcat Cluster

Solution 1:

The first location you should take a look at is catalina.out, it will tell you what might be wrong.

If you can't make it works with multicast, just try static membership (I think it will simpler).

Below is my config:

Put the <Cluster node inside the <Host element:

<Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost" jvmRoute="tomcat1">         
  <Host name="localhost"  appBase="webapps"
            unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true"
            xmlValidation="false" xmlNamespaceAware="false">

    <Cluster className="org.apache.catalina.ha.tcp.SimpleTcpCluster">
        <Channel className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.group.GroupChannel">
            <Receiver className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.transport.nio.NioReceiver"
                  address="192.168.5.149"
                  port="4000"
                  selectorTimeout="100"
                  maxThreads="6"/>
            <Interceptor className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.group.interceptors.TcpFailureDetector"/>
            <Interceptor className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.group.interceptors.StaticMembershipInterceptor">
                <Member className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.StaticMember"
                      port="4001"
                      securePort="-1"
                      host="192.168.5.199"
                      domain="staging-cluster"
                      uniqueId="{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}"/>
            </Interceptor>
        </Channel>
        <Deployer className="org.apache.catalina.ha.deploy.FarmWarDeployer"
            tempDir="/usr/share/tomcat6/tempdir/"
            deployDir="/usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/"
            watchDir="/usr/share/tomcat6/watchdir/"
            watchEnabled="true"/>
    </Cluster>
  </Host>
</Engine>

• The address attribute in <Receiver element is the node1's IP address. (in your case is .101)
• The port is listening for replication messages on node 1 (4000-4100)
• The Member's port in <Interceptor is listening for cluster messages on node 2
• The Member's host is the IP address of node 2 (.102)

server.xml on the node 2:

    <Cluster className="org.apache.catalina.ha.tcp.SimpleTcpCluster">
        <Channel className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.group.GroupChannel">
            <Receiver className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.transport.nio.NioReceiver"
                  address="192.168.5.199"
                  port="4001"
                  selectorTimeout="100"
                  maxThreads="6"/>
            <Interceptor className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.group.interceptors.TcpFailureDetector"/>
            <Interceptor className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.group.interceptors.StaticMembershipInterceptor">
                <Member className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.membership.StaticMember"
                      port="4000"
                      securePort="-1"
                      host="192.168.5.149"
                      domain="staging-cluster"
                      uniqueId="{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}"/>
            </Interceptor>
        </Channel>
        <Deployer className="org.apache.catalina.ha.deploy.FarmWarDeployer"
            tempDir="/usr/share/tomcat6/tempdir/"
            deployDir="/usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/"
            watchDir="/usr/share/tomcat6/watchdir/"
            watchEnabled="false"/>
    </Cluster>

Make sure that Tomcat can write to tempDir and watchDir folder:

chmod g+w tempDir watchDir
chgrp tomcat tempDir watchDir

If you don't do this, you will get the below error:

Aug 13, 2011 10:28:33 PM org.apache.catalina.ha.deploy.FarmWarDeployer messageReceived
SEVERE: Unable to read farm deploy file message.
java.io.IOException: Permission denied

Remember to add <distributable/> into webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/web.xml:

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
  ...
  <display-name>Welcome to Tomcat</display-name>
  <description>
     Welcome to Tomcat
  </description>
  <distributable/>
</web-app>

Whenever you copy a .war file into watchdir folder on node 1, you will see something like the following in catalina.out:

Aug 14, 2011 1:40:58 AM org.apache.catalina.ha.deploy.WarWatcher check
INFO: check cluster wars at /usr/share/tomcat6/watchdir
Aug 14, 2011 1:40:59 AM org.apache.catalina.ha.deploy.FarmWarDeployer fileModified
INFO: Installing webapp[/cas] from /usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/cas.war
Aug 14, 2011 1:40:59 AM org.apache.catalina.ha.deploy.FarmWarDeployer remove
INFO: Cluster wide remove of web app /cas
Aug 14, 2011 1:40:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
INFO: Deploying web application archive cas.war

and on the node 2:

Aug 14, 2011 1:40:59 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
INFO: Deploying web application archive cas.war

Good luck!

Solution 2:

Multicast address works if your /etc/hosts file contains the actual NIC ip address and not the loopback address 127.0.0.1. Tomcat picks up the Receiver.address attribute which is determined by the:

 <Receiver className="org.apache.catalina.tribes.transport.nio.NioReceiver"
                      address="auto"

Multicast service will broadcast the IP address which is associated with server's hostname. Catalina.out should show what ip address it picked up during startup. If loopback address is detected then cluster nodes will not be able to communicate with each other. A false address pickup example in catalina.out log file which results in no communication between nodes:

INFO: Cluster is about to start
09/08/2013 7:38:14 PM org.apache.catalina.tribes.transport.ReceiverBase bind
INFO: Receiver Server Socket bound to:/127.0.1.1:5000