How to Change Tomcat’s Default Directory: A Step-by-Step Guide

Changing the default directory in Apache Tomcat is a common task for developers and administrators who need to customize their server setup. This guide provides a clear, step-by-step process to modify Tomcat’s default web application directory, ensuring your applications are served from the desired location.

To change the default directory of Tomcat, follow these steps:

1. Open the configuration file: Navigate to your Tomcat installation directory and locate the conf folder. Inside, you will find the server.xml file. Open this file with a text editor.
2. Locate and modify the Host element: Within the server.xml file, find the <Host> element. This element typically looks like this:

<Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true">

Here, the appBase="webapps" attribute specifies that the default directory for Tomcat is webapps. You can change this to any directory of your choice. For example, to change it to /opt/my-applications, you would modify the line to:

<Host name="localhost" appBase="/opt/my-applications" unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true">

3. Save and restart Tomcat: After making the changes, save the server.xml file and restart the Tomcat server for the modifications to take effect. This will ensure that Tomcat now serves applications from your newly specified default directory.

Always ensure proper permissions for the new directory and back up your server.xml file before making any changes.