Access Tomcat Manager App from different host

For Tomcat v8.5.4 and above, the file <tomcat>/webapps/manager/META-INF/context.xml has been adjusted:

<Context antiResourceLocking="false" privileged="true" >
    <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve"
         allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" />
</Context>

Change this file to comment the Valve:

<Context antiResourceLocking="false" privileged="true" >
    <!--
    <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve"
         allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" />
    -->
</Context>

After that, refresh your browser (not need to restart Tomcat), you can see the manager page.

Each deployed webapp has a context.xml file that lives in

$CATALINA_BASE/conf/[enginename]/[hostname]

(conf/Catalina/localhost by default)

and has the same name as the webapp (manager.xml in this case). If no file is present, default values are used.

So, you need to create a file conf/Catalina/localhost/manager.xml and specify the rule you want to allow remote access. For example, the following content of manager.xml will allow access from all machines:

<Context privileged="true" antiResourceLocking="false" 
         docBase="${catalina.home}/webapps/manager">
    <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve" allow="^YOUR.IP.ADDRESS.HERE$" />
</Context>

Note that the allow attribute of the Valve element is a regular expression that matches the IP address of the connecting host. So substitute your IP address for YOUR.IP.ADDRESS.HERE (or some other useful expression).

Other Valve classes cater for other rules (e.g. RemoteHostValve for matching host names). Earlier versions of Tomcat use a valve class org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteIpValve for IP address matching.

Once the changes above have been made, you should be presented with an authentication dialog when accessing the manager URL. If you enter the details you have supplied in tomcat-users.xml you should have access to the Manager.