source: src/test/java/geniusweb/clienttest/EmbeddedTomcat.java

package geniusweb.clienttest;

import java.io.File;

import org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException;
import org.apache.catalina.startup.Tomcat;

class EmbeddedTomcat {
        private Tomcat tomcat = new Tomcat();

        public void start() {
                try {
                        // If I don't want to copy files around then the base directory must
                        // be '.'
                        String baseDir = ".";
                        tomcat.setPort(8080);
                        tomcat.setBaseDir(baseDir);
                        tomcat.getHost().setAppBase(baseDir);
                        tomcat.getHost().setDeployOnStartup(true);
                        tomcat.getHost().setAutoDeploy(true);
                        tomcat.start();
                } catch (LifecycleException e) {
                        throw new RuntimeException(e);
                }
        }

        public void stop() {
                try {
                        tomcat.stop();
                        tomcat.destroy();
                        // Tomcat creates a work folder where the temporary files are stored
                } catch (LifecycleException e) {
                        throw new RuntimeException(e);
                }
        }

        /**
         * Deploys the webapp contained in this project
         * 
         * @param appName the name to use on the server
         */
        public void deploy(String appName) {
                deployWar(appName, new File("src/main/webapp"));
        }

        /**
         * Deploys the webapp in the given war
         * 
         * @param appName the name to use on the server
         * @param warfile the warfile to deploy. Should include ".war" extension.
         */
        public void deployWar(String appName, File warfile) {
                tomcat.addWebapp(tomcat.getHost(), "/" + appName,
                                warfile.getAbsolutePath());

        }

        public String getApplicationUrl(String appName) {
                return String.format("http://%s:%d/%s", tomcat.getHost().getName(),
                                tomcat.getConnector().getLocalPort(), appName);
        }
}