---
title: Hosting Pulse on a Web Application Server
---

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Host Pulse on a dedicated Web application server to make the Pulse application available at a consistent address, or to use SSL for accessing the Pulse application. When you host Pulse in this way, you also configure Pulse to connect to a specific locator or JMX Manager node for monitoring.

To host Pulse on a Web application server:

1.  Set the `http-service-port` property to zero (`-Dgemfire.http-service-port=0`) when you start your <%=vars.product_name%> JMX Manager nodes. Setting this property to zero disables the embedded Web server for hosting the Pulse application.

2.  Deploy the Pulse Web application to your application server. <%=vars.product_name%> installs the
`geode-pulse-n.n.n.war` file (where `n.n.n` is a version number) in the `tools/Pulse` subdirectory
of your <%=vars.product_name%> installation directory. Depending on your application server, you may need to copy the
`pulse.war` file to a deployment directory or use a configuration tool to deploy the file.

3.  Stop the Web application server and locate the Pulse configuration in the `WEB-INF/classes` subdirectory.

4.  Edit `pulse.properties`, defining or redefining any of the following configuration properties as needed for your application:

    <table>
    <colgroup>
    <col width="50%" />
    <col width="50%" />
    </colgroup>
    <thead>
    <tr class="header">
    <th>Property</th>
    <th>Description</th>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    <tr>
    <td><code class="ph codeph">pulse.useLocator</code></td>
    <td>Specify &quot;true&quot; to configure Pulse to connect to a <%=vars.product_name%> Locator member, or &quot;false&quot; to connect directly to a JMX Manager.
    <p>When Pulse connects to a <%=vars.product_name%> locator, the locator provides the address and port of an available JMX Manager to use for monitoring the cluster. In most production deployments, you should connect Pulse to a locator instance; this allows Pulse to provide monitoring services using any available JMX Manager.</p>
    <p>If you specify &quot;false,&quot; Pulse connects directly to a specific JMX Manager. If this manager is not available, the Pulse connection fails, even if another JMX Manager is available in the cluster.</p></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td><code class="ph codeph">pulse.host</code></td>
    <td>Specify the DNS name or IP address of the <%=vars.product_name%> locator or JMX Manager machine to which Pulse should connect. You specify either a locator or JMX Manager address depending on how you configured the <code class="ph codeph">pulse.useLocator</code> property.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td><code class="ph codeph">pulse.port</code></td>
    <td>Specify the port number of the <%=vars.product_name%> locator or the HTTP port number of the JMX Manager to which Pulse should connect. You specify either a locator or JMX Manager port depending on how you configured the <code class="ph codeph">pulse.useLocator</code> property.
    <p>If you configured <code class="ph codeph">pulse.useLocator=false</code>, then <code class="ph codeph">pulse.port</code> must correspond to the <code class="ph codeph">http-service-port</code> setting of the JMX Manager.</p></td>
    </tr>
    </tbody>
    </table>

    &nbsp;

    For example, with the default `pulse.properties` configuration, Pulse connects to the locator at port 10334 and accesses any available JMX Manager:

    ``` pre
    pulse.useLocator=true
    pulse.host=localhost
    pulse.port=10334
    ```

    With this modified configuration, Pulse accesses only the JMX Manager instance at port 8080:

    ``` pre
    pulse.useLocator=false
    pulse.host=jmxsrv.mycluster.com
    pulse.port=8080
    ```

5.  If a JMX manager or locator is configured to use SSL, you can configure Pulse to connect to these
    processes. Edit `pulsesecurity.properties` to un-comment the standard Java SSL properties:

    ```
    javax.net.ssl.keyStore={KeyStorePath}
    javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword={KeyStorePassword}
    javax.net.ssl.trustStore={TrustStorePath}
    javax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword={TrustStorePassword}
    ```

    Substitute the appropriate paths and passwords for the bracketed placeholders.

6.  To change Pulse logging behavior, edit `log4j2.xml` in the same directory.
    The default configuration sets the logging level to `INFO` and specifies a message pattern that
    includes the date, name of the reporting logger, error level, name of the reporting thread, and the error message.
    Refer to the [Apache Log4j documentation](https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/configuration.html#XML) for details on how to specify `log4j2.xml` content and syntax.

7.  Restart the Web application server.

8.  Access the Pulse application using the address, port, and application URL that you configured in
your Web application server. For example, with Tomcat the default URL is
`http://*address*:8080/pulse`. Your application server provides options for configuring the address,
port, and application name; substitute the correct items to access the deployed Pulse application.

    Pulse connects to the locator or JMX Manager that you configured in the `pulse.properties` file, authenticating using the credentials that you configured in the file.

9.  If you have configured authentication for the Pulse application, enter the username and password of a valid Pulse account in the login screen. Otherwise, enter the default "admin" in both fields. Click **Sign In** to continue.

    See [Configuring Pulse Authentication](pulse-auth.html).

10.  After you log in, Pulse displays the main cluster view for the distributed system to which it has connected. See [Using Pulse Views](pulse-views.html).