Apache Tomcat is an open-source software implementation of the Java Servlet and Java Server Pages.Tomcat is used to serve Java applications and provides a Java HTTP web server environment in which Java code can run
This guide explains how to install Apache Tomcat on an Ubuntu 16.04/18.04 server.For this tutorials we are installing Apache tomcat 8.5.57 version.
Before We Begin:
- root user or user with sudo privileges on ubuntu server
- Oracle or openjdk java installed and configured with environment variables.
Tomcat requires Java JDK. If you want to know how to install java please go through our previous post related to java installation and configure on How to install and configure java on ubuntu 16.04/18.04 LTS-PART 1
Test java version ,JAVA_HOME and PATH before the tomcat installation
java -version
openjdk version "1.8.0_252" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_252-8u252-b09-1~16.04-b09) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.252-b09, mixed mode)
echo $JAVA_HOME
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64
echo $PATH
/home/ubuntuclient/bin:/home/ubuntuclient/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64/bin
Here we can see that openjdk java 1.8 version is installed where the installation path is
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64.
Install Tomcat
The best and recommended way to install Tomcat 8 is to download the latest binary release then configure it manually.
Find the latest version of Tomcat 8 at the Tomcat 8 Downloads page.At the time of writing, the latest version is 8.5.57.Under the Binary Distributions section, then under the Core list, we can see the tar.gz file.copy the link address (ubuntu show copy link location when click )It will look like :
https://mirrors.estointernet.in/apache/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.5.57/bin/apache-tomcat-8.5.57.tar.gz
Next, go to the /opt/tomcat directory and download tomcat with the wget command:
cd /opt/
wget https://mirrors.estointernet.in/apache/tomcat/tomcat- 8/v8.5.57/bin/apache-tomcat-8.5.57.tar.gz
Or you can directly download the tar.gz file and move into /opt directory also.
Unzip the files into the tomcat folder.
sudo tar xzvf apache-tomcat-8.5.57.tar.gz
Configure tomcat directory
After downloading we can see tomcat folder like /opt/apache-tomcat-8.5.57.For convenience just rename apache-tomcat-8.5.57 to tomcat
cd /opt
mv apache-tomcat-8.5.57 tomcat
Now our tomcat installation directory ready and it is /opt/tomcat.
This information is missing from many blogs related to tomcat installation since upon downloading tomcat file name look like apache-tomcat with version number.In this case apache-tomcat-8.5.57.We need to manually rename it to tomcat .Then only it become proper installation directory /opt/tomcat otherwise it will look like /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.5.57
Update Permissions
The tomcat user that we set up needs to have access to the Tomcat installation. We’ll set that up now.
Change to the directory where we unpacked the Tomcat installation:
cd /opt/
sudo chown -R tomcat tomcat/
Configure .bashrc File
Set the environment variables in .bashrc with the following command:
nano .bashrc
add the below contents to the end of the .bashrc file .save and close it
export CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat
Verify your file paths! If you downloaded a different version or already installed Java, you may have to edit the file path or name. . Likewise, if you installed Tomcat in a different folder other than /opt/ (as suggested) you’ll indicate the path in your bash file and edit the lines above.
To save the changes load the command
source .bashrc
Create Tomcat User
For security purposes, Tomcat should be run as an unprivileged user (i.e. not root). We will create a new user and group that will run the Tomcat service
First, create a new tomcat group:
sudo groupadd tomcat
Next, create a new tomcat user. We’ll make this user a member of the tomcat group, with a home directory of /opt/tomcat (where we have installed install Tomcat), and with a shell of /bin/false (so nobody can log into the account):
sudo useradd -s /bin/false -g tomcat -d /opt/tomcat tomcat
Now we done tomcat user setup and installation.
Start tomcat and test
We can start tomcat as a service or using the script also.Here we are starting tomcat using the script as it is easy and comfortable method while working on application deployments
Note :
You cannot perform this as normal user.Need to login in as tomcat user and run the script .
Because we already given permissions and ownership to tomcat folder to user tomcat only
In order to start Tomcat ,login as tomcat user as below and run the script :
sudo -s -u tomcat
tomcat@gitserver:~$
Now we logged in as tomcat .Note Previously our username was ubuntuclient.
sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
will get output as follows :
tomcat@gitserver:~$ sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh Using CATALINA_BASE: /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_HOME: /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/temp Using JRE_HOME: /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64 Using CLASSPATH: /opt/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/bin/tomcat-juli.jar Tomcat started
Note the javapath and tomcat installation path.
To verify that Tomcat is working, visit the IP.of.your.server:8080 in a web browser. For example, http://127.0.0.1:8080.
If you want to deploy a sample java file like war to test , go to https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.0-doc/appdev/sample/ and download the sample.war file
Go to /opt/tomcat/webapps folder .Copy the sample.war file to this location.
start the tomcat .check our war is running or not on tomcat
will get an output like
Conclusion
Your installation of Tomcat is complete! Your are now free to deploy your own Java web applications!
Well said…. !!