[SOLVED] Maven tomcat plugin - cannot invoke Tomcat manager

I'm trying to deploy my web app on Tomcat 7 with Maven (version 3.3.3), but I'm getting the exception listed in the title.

I've tried many solutions but no one works for me.

I had:

Edited tomcat-users.xml ($CATALINA_HOME/conf/tomcat-user.xml):

<tomcat-users>
    <role rolename="manager-gui"/>
    <role rolename="manager-script"/>
    <user username="user" password="pass" roles="manager-script"/>
    <user username="user2" password="pass2" roles="manager-gui"/>
</tomcat-users>

Edited settings.xml ($USER_HOME/.m2/settings.xml):

<servers>
    <server>
         <id>RemoteServer</id>
         <username>user</username>
         <password>pass</password>
    </server>
</servers>

Configured pom.xml ($MY_PROJECT/pom.xml):

 <plugin>
     <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.maven</groupId>
     <artifactId>tomcat7-maven-plugin</artifactId>
     <version>2.2</version> 
     <configuration>
         <server>RemoteServer</server>
         <url>http://my.public.ip.address:8080/manager/text</url>
         <username>user</username>
         <password>pass</password>
     </configuration>   
 </plugin>

Edited context.xml ($CATALINA_HOME/webapps/manager/META-INF/context.xml)

 <Context antiResourceLocking="false" privileged="true" >
 <!--
      <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve"
       allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" />
 -->
 <Manager sessionAttributeValueClassNameFilter="java\.lang\.(?:Boolean|Integer|Long|Number|String)|org\.apache\.catalina\.filters\.CsrfPreventionFilter\$LruCache(?:\$1)?|java\.util\.(?:Linked)?HashMap"/>
 </Context>

Additional notes:

I tried to deploy both to 8.0.45 and 8.5.16 (for the latter server, the configuration in context.xml was fundamental)
I can access the manager GUI with no problem
The username/password in the pom "should" be an overkill, but I read around that could help, in any case I tried also without those attributes
If I test the manager/text (for example manager/text/deploy from the browser) I get a response (FAIL - Invalid parameters supplied for command [/deploy] and that's fine)

The error I get is:

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.tomcat.maven:tomcat7-maven-plugin:2.2:deploy (default-cli) on project ShareRideServer: Cannot invoke Tomcat manager: Connection refused: connect -> [Help 1] org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: Failed to execute goal org.apache.tomcat.maven:tomcat7-maven-plugin:2.2:deploy (default-cli) on project ShareRideServer: Cannot invoke Tomcat manager at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:216) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:153) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:145) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:116) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:80) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.builder.singlethreaded.SingleThreadedBuilder.build(SingleThreadedBuilder.java:51) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleStarter.execute(LifecycleStarter.java:128) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:307) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:193) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:106) at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.execute(MavenCli.java:862) at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.doMain(MavenCli.java:286) at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:197) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:497) at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:289) at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:229) at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:415) at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:356) Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.MojoExecutionException: Cannot invoke Tomcat manager at org.apache.tomcat.maven.plugin.tomcat7.AbstractCatalinaMojo.execute(AbstractCatalinaMojo.java:141) at org.apache.tomcat.maven.plugin.tomcat7.AbstractWarCatalinaMojo.execute(AbstractWarCatalinaMojo.java:68) at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultBuildPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultBuildPluginManager.java:134) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:208) ... 20 more Caused by: java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: connect at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.connect0(Native Method) at java.net.DualStackPlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(DualStackPlainSocketImpl.java:79) at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.doConnect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:350) at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:206) at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:188) at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:172) at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392) at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:589) at org.apache.http.conn.scheme.PlainSocketFactory.connectSocket(PlainSocketFactory.java:117) at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultClientConnectionOperator.openConnection(DefaultClientConnectionOperator.java:178) at org.apache.http.impl.conn.ManagedClientConnectionImpl.open(ManagedClientConnectionImpl.java:304) at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.tryConnect(DefaultRequestDirector.java:610) at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.java:445) at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.doExecute(AbstractHttpClient.java:863) at org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient.execute(CloseableHttpClient.java:82) at org.apache.tomcat.maven.common.deployer.TomcatManager.invoke(TomcatManager.java:742) at org.apache.tomcat.maven.common.deployer.TomcatManager.deployImpl(TomcatManager.java:705) at org.apache.tomcat.maven.common.deployer.TomcatManager.deploy(TomcatManager.java:388) at org.apache.tomcat.maven.plugin.tomcat7.deploy.AbstractDeployWarMojo.deployWar(AbstractDeployWarMojo.java:85) at org.apache.tomcat.maven.plugin.tomcat7.deploy.AbstractDeployMojo.invokeManager(AbstractDeployMojo.java:82) at org.apache.tomcat.maven.plugin.tomcat7.AbstractCatalinaMojo.execute(AbstractCatalinaMojo.java:132) ... 23 more