How to Install Tomcat7 on Ubuntu using apt-get

As of date there isn't an apt-get package for Installing tomcat7 on Ubuntu. So you need to Install it manually. Its easy... all you have to do is follow some simply steps which are listed below:

Assuming you already have JRE/JDK Installed on your Ubuntu box, we will straightaway jump to Installing tomcat....

1.  Download the package (tar.gz) from: http://mirrors.axint.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-7/v7.0.19/bin/apache-tomcat-7.0.19.tar.gz

As of writing this post this is the latest one...

2.  Unpack the downloaded file: you can use the command

tar xvzf apache-tomcat-7.0.19.tar.gz

3.  Now we will move everything to a more meaniningful directory.. like tomcat7.. so here is what you need to do:

sudo mv apache-tomcat-7.0.19/ /usr/share/tomcat7

4. Modify catalina.sh so that it points to the correct JRE you want to use... This file can be found in /usr/share/tomcat7/bin

5. Just insert JAVA_HOME and JRE_HOME after the first line.

That's all you had to do... You can try running it with following command and check...

sudo /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/startup.sh

The output shall tell the various things like:

Using CATALINA_BASE: /usr/share/tomcat7
Using CATALINA_HOME: /usr/share/tomcat7
Using JRE_HOME: /usr/local/jdk1.6.0_20/jre
Using CLASSPATH: /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/share/tomcat7/bin/tomcat-juli.jar

Check if you are able to get to the home page...

http://localhost:8080.. This should bring up tomcat7 Home page..

If you want to stop the server use:

sudo /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/shutdown.sh

Automatic Starting

To make tomcat automatically start when we boot up the computer, you can add a script to make it auto-start and shutdown.


sudo gedit /etc/init.d/tomcat7

Now paste in the following:


# Tomcat auto-start
#
# description: Auto-starts tomcat
# processname: tomcat
# pidfile: /var/run/tomcat.pid

case $1 in
start)
sh /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/startup.sh
;;
stop) 
sh /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/shutdown.sh
;;
restart)
sh /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/shutdown.sh
sh /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/startup.sh
;;
esac 
exit 0

You’ll need to make the script executable by running the chmod command:


sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/tomcat7

The last step is actually linking this script to the startup folders with a symbolic link. Execute these two commands and we should be on our way.


sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/tomcat7 /etc/rc1.d/K99tomcat
sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/tomcat7 /etc/rc2.d/S99tomcat

References: http://diegobenna.blogspot.com/2011/01/install-tomcat-7-in-ubuntu-1010.html