Deploying a SpringAI MCP server on Tomcat

[rrivero-denodo]

Hi,

I have a very simple Spring AI MCP server that works correctly when running as a JAR. I'm able to use it successfully with Cursor as a Spring AI app in that setup.

However, I wanted to deploy it as a WAR to an external Tomcat server. When deployed as a web application in Tomcat, I'm unable to get the MCP server to work properly. If I send a GET request to http://localhost:8080/simplemcp/sse using Postman, I can see the connection is established and working, but it doesn't work from Cursor or the MCP Inspector.

Has anyone been able to run a Spring AI MCP server successfully as a WAR in Tomcat? I've searched for information on this setup but haven’t found anything helpful so far.

Thanks in advance for your time and help!

Here are my application.properties:

spring.application.name=simplemcp
spring.main.bannerMode=off
logging.pattern.console=

My pom.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<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>3.4.5</version>
        <relativePath />
    </parent>

    <groupId>com.example</groupId>

    <artifactId>simple-mcp-server</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <name>Simple MCP server</name>
    <description>Simple MCP server</description>

    <dependencyManagement>
        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>org.springframework.ai</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-ai-bom</artifactId>
                <version>1.0.0-RC1</version>
                <type>pom</type>
                <scope>import</scope>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </dependencyManagement>

    <dependencies>
      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.ai</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-ai-starter-mcp-server-webmvc</artifactId>
        <exclusions>
          <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
          </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
      </dependency>

      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
      </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

	<repositories>
		<repository>
			<id>spring-milestones</id>
			<name>Spring Milestones</name>
			<url>https://repo.spring.io/milestone</url>
			<snapshots>
				<enabled>false</enabled>
			</snapshots>
		</repository>
		<repository>
			<id>spring-snapshots</id>
			<name>Spring Snapshots</name>
			<url>https://repo.spring.io/snapshot</url>
			<releases>
				<enabled>false</enabled>
			</releases>
		</repository>
		<repository>
			<id>central-portal-snapshots</id>
			<name>Central Portal Snapshots</name>
			<url>https://central.sonatype.com/repository/maven-snapshots/</url>
			<releases>
				<enabled>false</enabled>
			</releases>
			<snapshots>
				<enabled>true</enabled>
			</snapshots>
		</repository>
	</repositories>
</project>