Deploying a war file (by dropping it in de webapps dir) called test.war witch
includes an context.xml file in a dir called META-INF, results in directory
called test.xml created in the conf/Catalina/localhost/ directory.
The war file is correctly unpacked in the webapps dir.

Next the server reports an error in the catalina.out log like:

Aug 4, 2004 1:16:46 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDescriptors
SEVERE: Error deploying configuration descriptor test.xml
java.io.IOException: java.io.FileNotFoundException:
/usr2/app/apache/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/conf/Catalina/localhost/test.xml (Is a
directory)
        at
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostDeployer.install(StandardHostDeployer.java:494)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.install(StandardHost.java:863)
        at
org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptors(HostConfig.java:482)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:427)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.check(HostConfig.java:1068)
        at
org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:327)
        at
org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
        at
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.backgroundProcess(StandardHost.java:800)
        at
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.processChildren(ContainerBase.java:1619)
        at
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.processChildren(ContainerBase.java:1628)
        at
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.run(ContainerBase.java:1608)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:536)

A workaround forr the moment is to remove the faulty directory and manually
copying the correct context.xml file from de unpacked webapp to the
conf/Catalina/localhost/ directory and calling it test.xml

success,

Robin Betjes, 
Ecomsulting B.V.