The <DefaultContext> tag is still referenced in several places in the Tomcat doc, even though it has been replaced by the conf/context.xml file. I've found references in the following doc source files: container/webapps/docs/jndi-resources-howto.xml container/webapps/docs/config/context.xml container/webapps/docs/config/engine.xml container/webapps/docs/config/globalresources.xml container/webapps/docs/config/host.xml container/webapps/docs/funcspecs/mbean-names.xml This problem also exists in the recent 5.5.20 release.
Fixed in SVN and will be included in 5.5.21 onwards. NB the docs on the website are aligned with the latest stable release so they will be upadted at the next release.
*** Bug 41740 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
How do you define default contexts for auto-deployed apps in multiple vhosts, where each vhost requires different defaults?
RTFM: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/config/context.html In addition to nesting Context elements inside a Host element, you can also store them: * in the individual $CATALINA_HOME/conf/context.xml file: the Context element information will be loaded by all webapps * in the individual $CATALINA_HOME/conf/[enginename]/[hostname]/context.xml.default file: the Context element information will be loaded by all webapps of that host * in individual files (with a ".xml" extension) in the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/[enginename]/[hostname]/ directory * if the previous file was not found for this application, in individual file at /META-INF/context.xml inside the application files Note the 2nd bullet.