9.2 Obtaining the Source

9.2 Obtaining the Source Since Tomcat is a moving target (each release changes slightly, and point releases happen fairly frequently), this is only a general description of the build process. 9.2.1 Downloading Source Code If you want a simpler start, you can get a release source TAR for Tomcat 4 from the Jakarta Tomcat 4 releases directory at http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/jakarta-tomcat-4.0/release. Choose a release, navigate into that release's src/ directory, download the compressed archives of the source code, and unpack them all in a directory where you want to build it. 9.2.2 Obtaining Source Code with CVS If you are very brave and like to live on the edge, you can update your source tree periodically between point releases and help the Tomcat development team test out new features that are in development. To do this you must use the Concurrent Versions System (CVS); see the CVS Pocket Reference, by Gregor N. Purdy (O'Reilly) for details. If you want to use CVS, the Tomcat CVS modules are jakarta-tomcat-4.0 (even for Tomcat 4.1!), jakarta-tomcat-jasper, and jakarta-tomcat-connectors. If you don't have CVS installed, get it from http://www.cvshome.org/. Like Tomcat, CVS is free software; anybody can use it without having to pay a fee. Starting in a clean directory or your normal source directory, log into CVS as the anonymous user: $ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic login Password: anoncvs In order to pull a copy of the Tomcat 4 source code, you should request a specific version by referring to its version tag in CVS. If you pull the source without specifying a tag, what you'll get is an untagged (and potentially untested) copy of the source, and it may not build. Always be sure to specify a version tag; this is one of the most common causes for a broken build. You can see a list of tags by viewing the revision history of the LICENSE file at http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs/jakarta-tomcat-4.0/LICENSE. For example, if you want to pull a copy of the Tomcat 4.1.24 source, use these tags: $ cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic checkout -r TOMCAT_4_1_24 \ jakarta-tomcat-4.0 jakarta-tomcat-jasper jakarta-tomcat-connectors Pulling all of the source will probably take a little while, but when CVS is done transferring, you'll have all three source directories, straight out of the source code repository. Once you have the code, the jakarta-tomcat-4.0, jakarta-tomcat-jasper, and jakarta-tomcat-connectors directories all reside within the same base directory. You can place these directories in other places, but if you do, you must edit the jakarta-tomcat-4.0/build.properties file (if it doesn't yet exist, copy build.properties.sample to build.properties) and change these lines: # ----- Jakarta Tomcat Connectors source path ----- #jtc.home=../../jakarta-tomcat-connectors # ----- Jakarta Tomcat Jasper source path ----- #jasper.home=../jakarta-tomcat-jasper/jasper2 All of these directories reside within the same base directory by default, so you do not need to modify these lines if this is your setup.