Deploying Java webapp to Tomcat 8 running in Docker container

There's a oneliner for this one.

You can simply run,

docker run -v /1.0-SNAPSHOT/my-app-1.0-SNAPSHOT.war:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/myapp.war -it -p 8080:8080 tomcat

This will copy the war file to webapps directory and get your app running in no time.


Tomcat will only extract the war which is copied to webapps directory. Change Dockerfile as below:

FROM tomcat:8.0.20-jre8
COPY /1.0-SNAPSHOT/my-app-1.0-SNAPSHOT.war /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/myapp.war

You might need to access the url as below unless you have specified the webroot

http://192.168.59.103:8888/myapp/getData


You are trying to copy the war file to a directory below webapps. The war file should be copied into the webapps directory.

Remove the mkdir command, and copy the war file like this:

COPY /1.0-SNAPSHOT/my-app-1.0-SNAPSHOT.war /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/myapp.war

Tomcat will extract the war if autodeploy is turned on.