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This guide covers downloading and installing Tomcat 9 on a linux server.

Prerequisites

You can The following instructions assume that:

  • you can login as a non-root user with sudo access.

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  • you have installed Java, with the required settings.

Step 1  Create Tomcat user

Warning

Do not run Tomcat as root as this constitutes a security risk.

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Code Block
sudo groupadd tomcat
sudo useradd -s /bin/false -g tomcat -d /opt/tomcat tomcat

Step 2  Download and install Tomcat 

Excerpt

  1. Download

    1. To find the latest version, go to the Tomcat downloads page:
    2. for version 8: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-80.cgi
      3. for version 9: https://tomcat.apache.org/download-90.cgi
    3. Find the latest Binary Distributions section, then the Core sub-heading, and copy the tar.gz link.

    4. To download Tomcat, on the Linux server, go to the tmp directory. Use the curl command to download from the the tar.gz link.

      Code Block
      cd /tmp
curl -O httphttps://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/rsync.downloads.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.3897/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.3897.tar.gz


  2. Install

    1. Unpack the Tomcat tar.gz file into /opt/tomcat.

      Code Block
      sudo mkdir /opt/tomcat
cd /opt/tomcat
sudo tar xvf /tmp/apache-tomcat-9*tar.gz --strip-components=1


      This creates the tomcat folders (conf, logs, webapps etc.) directly under /opt/tomcat.

    2. Set the file ownership and permissions.

      Code Block
      cd /opt/tomcat
sudo chown -R tomcat:tomcat webapps/tomcat
work/ temp/ logs/
sudo chgrp -R tomcat .cd tomcat
sudo chmod -R g+r conf
sudo chmod g+x conf


Step 3  Create a service wrapper

This stage step creates a wrapper which that allows tomcat Tomcat to be managed as a service. Using a service ; this allows tomcat to be stopped and started means you can stop and start Tomcat reliably, and ensures that the running environment (e.g. the starting directory) is well defined.

Specifically, these These instructions create a systemd service.

First, create a service definition file:

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And then paste the following script into the file, making sure that the script is adjusted so that: 

  • JAVA_HOME

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  • is the

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  • base installation of Java. If you don't know where this is, run the command:
Code Block
update-alternatives --list java

This will give you the full path of the java program, for example: /usr/lib/jvm/temurin-11-jdk-amd64/bin/java. The installation directory in this case is /usr/lib/jvm/temurin-11-jdk-amd64.

  • The memory settings (-Xms and -Xmx) on the line for

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  • CATALINA_OPTS are set as needed (this example assumes you are allocating 8GB of memory to tomcat); see Tomcat Planning for details of estimating Tomcat's memory allocation
  • The location of the GC (Garbage Collection) log file, set in CATALINA_OPTS, is correct - in the examples below, this /opt/tomcat/logs

Java 8

Code Block
[Unit]
Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking

Environment=JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/opt/jdk/jdk1.8.0_85/jrejvm/temurin-8-jdk-amd64
Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/temp/tomcat.pid
Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat
Environment=CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat
Environment='CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms8096M -Xmx8096M -server -XX:+PrintGCDetails -XX:+PrintGCDateStamps -Xloggc:/opt/tomcat/logs/gc-%%t.log'
Environment='JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true'

ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh
ExecStop=/opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh

WorkingDirectory=/opt/tomcat

User=tomcat
Group=tomcat
UMask=0007
RestartSec=10
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Java 11

Code Block
[Unit]
Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking

Environment=JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/temurin-11-jdk-amd64
Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/temp/tomcat.pid
Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat
Environment=CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat
Environment='CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms8096M -Xmx8096M -server -verbose:gcXlog:gc=debug:file=/opt/tomcat/logs/gc-%%t.log:time,uptimemillis,tid'
Environment='JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true'

ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh
ExecStop=/opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh

WorkingDirectory=/opt/tomcat

User=tomcat
Group=tomcat
UMask=0007
RestartSec=10
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

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