Installing a Web Server

You can run Vaadin applications in any Java servlet container that supports at least Servlet API 3.0. Server push can benefit from using communication modes, such as WebSocket, enabled by features in some latest servers. For Java EE containers, at least Wildfly, Glassfish, and Apache TomEE Web Profile are recommended.

Some Java IDEs have server integration, so we describe installation of the server before the IDEs.

Some IDE bundles also include a development server; for example, NetBeans IDE includes GlassFish and Apache Tomcat.

You can also opt to install a development server from a Maven dependency and let the IDE control it through Maven executions.

Installing Apache Tomcat

Apache Tomcat is a lightweight Java web server suitable for both development and production. There are many ways to install it, but here we simply decompress the installation package.

Apache Tomcat should be installed with user permissions. During development, you will be running Eclipse or some other IDE with user permissions, but deploying web applications to a Tomcat server that is installed system-wide requires administrator or root permissions.

1. Download the installation package:

   Apache Tomcat 8.0 (Core Binary Distribution) from http://tomcat.apache.org/

2. Decompress Apache Tomcat package to a suitable target directory, such as C:\dev (Windows) or /opt (Linux or Mac OS X). The Apache Tomcat home directory will be C:\dev\apache-tomcat-8.0.x or /opt/apache-tomcat-8.0.x, respectively.

Do not start the server. If you use an IDE integration, the IDE will control starting and stopping the server.