Maven default deployment path locate at target/tomcat/webapps?

In order for me to establish a JNDI connection in Tomcat, I have the data source declare inside server.xml as shown in the code snippet below:

And then I have the JNDI data source declared in Spring like this:

Let’s do some experiment on maven-war-plugin, if this plugin went missing, an error message mention Name [comp/env] is not bound in this Context. Unable to find [comp]. as shown in the following stack trace could be seen:

javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: Name [comp/env] is not bound in this Context. Unable to find [comp].
 at org.apache.naming.NamingContext.lookup(NamingContext.java:820)
 at org.apache.naming.NamingContext.lookup(NamingContext.java:168)
 at org.apache.catalina.deploy.NamingResources.cleanUp(NamingResources.java:988)
 at org.apache.catalina.deploy.NamingResources.stopInternal(NamingResources.java:970)
 at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.stop(LifecycleBase.java:232)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.stopInternal(StandardContext.java:5495)
 at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.stop(LifecycleBase.java:232)
 at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:160)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549)
 at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
 at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

If the plugin were there (as shown in following code snippet) but without any configuration being done, the above error message could be seen too.

 
  org.apache.maven.plugins
  maven-war-plugin
  2.2
 

Now if <outputDirectory> is configure to the plugin as shown in following code snippet:

 
  org.apache.maven.plugins
  maven-war-plugin
  2.2
  
   ${project.basedir}/target/tomcat/webapps
  
 

Tada! It works. Now change to use <warSourceDirectory> in the configuration as shown in following code snippet and start up the Tomcat, the same error could be seen as well.

 
  org.apache.maven.plugins
  maven-war-plugin
  2.2
  
   ${project.basedir}/src/main/webapp/
  
 

Try make some adjustment to the docBase attribute of <Context> in server.xml as shown in following code snippet, it will works again.

     
         
    ...

     

What a surprise?! If I pay close attention on the stack trace, I would notice MyService folder wasn’t there actually as mention in another message trace as shown in below:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Document base C:\MyService\target\tomcat\webapps\MyService does not exist or is not a readable directory
 at org.apache.naming.resources.FileDirContext.setDocBase(FileDirContext.java:140)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.resourcesStart(StandardContext.java:4906)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5086)
 at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559)
 at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549)
 at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
 at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

Another message I got was whenever Maven build is trigger, Maven will expect the output to be deploy into target/tomcat/webapps folder. Since I didn’t configure <outputdirectory> in POM.xml, then Maven will go for the default path searching my web app. By adjusting the docBase attribute 2 lever up will tell Maven "Hey! go search my app there".