How to update Apache Tomcat Embed from 9.0.35 to 10.0.4 in Java application

Question

I have a Java application which shows Apache Tomcat Embed as 9.0.35 version. I need to update this to 10.0.4. I'm very new to Java and have very minimal knowledge on it. This upgrade is needed to resolve some vulnerabilities with in the application.

How can I do this from IntelliJ IDE?

Answer 1

Tomcat 9 & 10 are equivalent products

Apache Tomcat 9 and 10 are equivalent products. The only difference is support for changes for the package names in the Jakarta Servlet and related technologies from javax.* to jakarta.*.

This package name change is for legal reasons involved in the transfer of responsibility for Jakarta EE (formerly Java EE) technologies from Oracle Corp to the Eclipse Foundation.

For more info, read Understanding Jakarta EE 9.

To quote the documentation:

Users of Tomcat 10 onwards should be aware that, as a result of the move from Java EE to Jakarta EE as part of the transfer of Java EE to the Eclipse Foundation, the primary package for all implemented APIs has changed from javax.* to jakarta.*. This will almost certainly require code changes to enable applications to migrate from Tomcat 9 and earlier to Tomcat 10 and later. A migration tool is under development to aid this process.

Move to the latest 9 rather than 10

Tomcat 9 and 10 track the same development changes. If your goal is simply to gain some security fixes, as far as I know you'll get the same fixes in both 9 and 10. Do not take my word for this, just study the Tomcat Release Notes.

So for the fastest easiest migration path, just upgrade to the latest 9 instead of 10. The current latest version of 9 is 9.0.44.

Stick with Tomcat 10

Alternatively, if you want to proceed with using Tomcat 10, change the import statements across your code base to use jakarta.* in place of javax.*.

IDEs such as IntelliJ have added features to assist in this migration chore.