Why can't I access my controller? - spring-mvc

Question

First note that I am a total beginner regarding this. I started spring maven web project and wrote 3 classes (posted below).
I put the project to be run on my tomcat server (from eclipse) and when I start it i can access localhost:8080 (tomcat default page is shown), but when i try to access localhost:8080/greeting i get 404 error, what am I doing wrong? I'll also post my pom.xml
Thank you
Greeting:
package hello;
public class Greeting {
private final long id;
private final String content;
public Greeting(long id, String content) {
this.id = id;
this.content = content;
}
public long getId() {
return id;
}
public String getContent() {
return content;
}
}
GreetingController:
package hello;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;
#RestController
public class GreetingController {
private static final String template = "Hello, %s!";
private final AtomicLong counter = new AtomicLong();
#RequestMapping("/greeting")
public Greeting greeting(#RequestParam(value="name", defaultValue="World") String name) {
return new Greeting(counter.incrementAndGet(),
String.format(template, name));
}
}
Application:
package hello;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
#SpringBootApplication
public class Application {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
}
}
pom.xml:
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<parent>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
<version>1.2.7.RELEASE</version>
</parent>
<artifactId>WebTest</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<properties>
<!-- Generic properties -->
<java.version>1.8</java.version>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
<project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
<!-- Web -->
<jsp.version>2.2</jsp.version>
<jstl.version>1.2</jstl.version>
<servlet.version>2.5</servlet.version>
<!-- Spring -->
<spring-framework.version>3.2.3.RELEASE</spring-framework.version>
<!-- Hibernate / JPA -->
<hibernate.version>4.2.1.Final</hibernate.version>
<!-- Logging -->
<logback.version>1.0.13</logback.version>
<slf4j.version>1.7.5</slf4j.version>
<!-- Test -->
<junit.version>4.11</junit.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<!-- Spring MVC -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
<version>4.1.8.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<!-- Other Web dependencies -->
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
<version>${jstl.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>${servlet.version}</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
<artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
<version>${jsp.version}</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<!-- Spring and Transactions -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-tx</artifactId>
<version>${spring-framework.version}</version>
</dependency>
<!-- Logging with SLF4J & LogBack -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
<version>${slf4j.version}</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
<artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
<version>${logback.version}</version>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<!-- Hibernate -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId>
<version>${hibernate.version}</version>
</dependency>
<!-- Test Artifacts -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
<version>${spring-framework.version}</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>${junit.version}</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>

Answer 1

If you deploy your application into a standalone Tomcat instance and it is not deployed as the ROOT application, you have to add the name of the application in your URL. You can check the Tomcat log for the exact name. If you named your project "helloworld", then Eclipse usually deploys the project with that name as application name, so you should call your application with the URL http://localhost:8080/helloworld/greeting

Answer 2

Unless you really need to deploy your application to an external Tomcat server, you can solve your problem by just running your application's main method directly. Spring Boot will start an embedded Tomcat instance for you.
If you need to be able to deploy your application to an external Tomcat server, then you need to change your Application class a little bit so that it'll start up correctly. You need to extend SpringBootServletInitializer and override the configure method:
#SpringBootApplication
public class Application extends SpringBootServletInitializer {
#Override
protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
return application.sources(Application.class);
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
}
}
This is covered in the traditional deployment section of the Spring Boot reference documentation.