i need to deploy a web application in WAR format to a remote tomcat6 server. The thing is that i don't want to do that the easy way, meaning not just copy/paste the WAR file to /webapps. So the second choice is to create a unique "Context Descriptor" and pointing this out to the WAR file. (Hope i got that right till here) So i have a few questions: Is the WAR file allowed to be anywhere in the file system? Meaning can i copy the WAR file anywhere in the remote file system, except /webapps or any other folder of the tomcat6 installation? Is there an easy way to test whether the deployment was successful or not? Without using any browser or anything, since i'm reaching to the remote server only via SSH and terminal. (I'm thinking ping?) Is it normal that the startup.sh/shutdown.sh don't exist? I'm not the admin of the server and don't know how the tomcat6 is installed. But i'm sure that in my local tomcat installations these files are in /bin and ready to use. I mean you can still start/restart/stop the tomcat etc., but not with the these -standard?- scripts. Thanks a lot.