Q:

What's the simplest way to deploy a Grails-generated WAR file?

I've been having persistent problems (for several weeks) getting Tomcat to deploy a WAR file. I'm looking for a simple server. It does not need to have a lot of functionality-it just needs to be simple to set up. In particular I'm looking for a program that I can just drop a WAR file into and have the enclosed web application launch.

A:

You might want to give jetty runner a try. It basically just uses an embedded jetty instance to run your war file. 
http://blogs.webtide.com/janb/entry/jetty_runner
It is available on Maven and it is in fact how heroku apps built with grails are ran. http://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/deploy-a-java-web-application-that-launches-with-jetty-runner

A:

If your application does not start on tomcat, it almost certainly means it won't start on any servlet container - containers implement a spec, and are very similar in many aspects.
What you should do is go and hunt each problem one by one, until the application starts. The problem is the app, not the container.

