[SOLVED] A class referenced in META-INF/context.xml not found when starting Tomcat

A class referenced in META-INF/context.xml not found when starting Tomcat

I am trying to implement a custom session manager (based on AWS DynamoDBSessionManager). I have context.xml file placed in web/META-INF folder. The contents is the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Context>
  <WatchedResource>WEB-INF/web.xml</WatchedResource>
  <Manager className="com.amazonaws.services.dynamodb.sessionmanager.DynamoDBSessionManager" createIfNotExist="true" />
</Context>

When I start Tomcat (from Intellij Idea) I get the error: /Tomcat_9_0_0_M1_LoginService/conf/Catalina/localhost/ROOT.xml; lineNumber: 4; columnNumber: 120; Error at (4, 120) : com.amazonaws.services.dynamodb.sessionmanager.DynamoDBSessionManager

... Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.amazonaws.services.dynamodb.sessionmanager.DynamoDBSessionManager

I understand that it somehow related to the fact that classes referenced in context.xml need to be in Tomcat classpath. But I don't know what I do in order to get them there.

Thanks!

Solution

You have to place aws-dynamodb-session-tomcat-2.0.3.jar in the WEB-INF/lib folder of your web application (or in lib folder of your Tomcat instance).

If you use Maven to build your webapp, add

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.amazonaws</groupId>
    <artifactId>aws-dynamodb-session-tomcat</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.3</version>
</dependency>

dependency to your pom.xml file.