Deploying Shindig in a non root context

Shindig is configured, by default, to be accessed in ROOT context. While this is ok for development purposes, it is not desirable in a production setting where main applications may already be running in ROOT context OR in cases where a web server acts as a HTTP Reverse Proxy for an Appserver.

This post describes the steps I followed to make Shindig gadget and opensocial containers work on my Tomcat Server in a non-Root Context. Thanks a ton to Kevin Brown for providing valuable pointers in this email chain.

The following steps would enable deployment of Shindig in a non Root context on Tomcat and other AppServers.

1) Build shindig using steps provided at http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/#tab-building

2) Copy shindig/java/server/target/shindig-server-1.1-SNAPSHOT.war to a temporary folder (say c:\temp)

3) cd c:\temp

4) unzip shindig-server-1.1-SNAPSHOT.war to c:\temp\shindig folder

5) cd shindig/WEB-INF/classes/containers/default

6) Open container.js in a text editor. Since the default setting assumes shindig to be in the root context, it is necessary to modify all URLs for opensocial calls to work correctly. After updating all URLs, save changes and close container.js.

(There are some properties in shindig still that are pending migration to container.js, hence step#7 to 10. Thanks Carmen and Gerald for this suggestion)

7) Extract shindig.properties from shindig/WEB-INF/lib/shindig-common-1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar to shindig/WEB-INF/classes folder

8) Remove shindig.properties from shindig/WEB-INF/lib/shindig-common-1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

9) cd shindig/WEB-INF/classes

10) Open shindig.properties in a text editor. Since the default setting assumes shindig to be in the root context, it is necessary to modify all URLs for gadget/concat calls to work correctly.

11) Fix Shindig's sample opensocial container "samplecontainer"
(a) cd c:/temp/shindig/gadgets/files/samplecontainer
(b) Open samplecontainer.js in a text editor
(c) Append Shindig's context name in the URL assigned to the variable "socialDataPath" (line# 44)
(d) Append Shindig's context name in the URI passed to sendRequestToServer() within requestGadgetMetaData function (line# 192)
(e) save & close samplecontainer.js
(f) cd examples
(g) Open all gadget xmls and, update URL of images (for ex:- bubble.gif, nophoto.if etc.)
(h) Also, make the changes mentioned in steps b-g for samplecontainer provided under c:/temp/shindig/WEB-INF/classes/gadgets/files/samplecontainer

12) Zip the contents of shindig folder and rename the zip file as shindig.war or any other name based on your preference.

13) This war file would now work on Tomcat or any other app server in a non-root context