Modifying XNAT in Response to Apache Tomcat 7 EOL

Beginning with XNAT 1.7.0 and running through XNAT 1.8.1 (slated for release in early April), XNAT has run on Apache Tomcat 7. As of March 31, 2021, Tomcat 7 has reached its end of life. Not only will Tomcat 7 stop receiving security updates, it will be removed from the CentOS repositories in the near future.

Fortunately, XNAT has already been tested against Apache Tomcat 8.5 (with some light testing on Tomcat 9 as well), and it should work seamlessly in this environment. The modifications required to enable support for Tomcat 8.5 - 9 are simple. We have published instructions here: Modifying XNAT to Run on Tomcat 8.5 and Later

Impact on Future XNAT Development

Beginning with XNAT 1.8.2, Apache Tomcat 8.5 will be the default environment for development and testing. We highly recommend moving your systems to 8.5 if you can. However, if you are intent on running newer versions of XNAT in a preserved Tomcat 7 environment, we have also published instructions for restoring that compatibility here: Modifying XNAT to Run on Tomcat 7.

Preserving a Legacy Environment

Since Tomcat 7 will be removed from the CentOS repositories, we do not recommend attempting to continue running in this environment. However, if this is a requirement, we suggest running in a containerized environment such as one of these:

https://hub.docker.com/r/unidata/tomcat-docker
https://hub.docker.com/r/bitnami/tomcat/