Forwarding IIS to Tomcat
Windows Server 2003, IIS 6 and Tomcat 6
Every now and then I get the chance to do something Java related at work. This week it was installing Tomcat 6 and forwarding certain urls from IIS to it.
It really shouldn't have to be too much of a problem, but of course I knew that IIS wouldn't play ball. It took a couple of hours with the help of a college, but finally it worked!
The really tricky part not covered in the Tomcat connector documentation was the need to add the ISAPI filter as a Web Service Extension in IIS. Thanks to the iis6-Tomcat5-JK2.pdf my college found we could get it up and running. I would like to send a thanks to the author, but I can't seem to find the source. Neither can these guys where the file I got was hosted. Anyway, follow the PDF for a quick and easy guide to forward IIS to Tomcat!
The PDF doesn't say why the Web Service Extension is needed and I don't know. However I would guess that it enables the filter to use broader mapping than the normal ISAPI filters. Since the usual way is to add the dll and set an extension I this way it might enable the full /test/* mapping etc. Well, just something I thought about now... and it's just a guess.