Learn How To Install Tomcat on Ubuntu 16.04
Table of Contents
- Prerequisites
- Update your system
- Update the JAVA_HOME variable
- Create a user to run the Tomcat web server
- Configure Tomcat
This guide explains how to install Apache Tomcat on an Ubuntu 16.04 server.
Prerequisites
- Deploy a new Ubuntu 16.04 server instance.
- Create a non-root sudo user.
- Log into the machine via SSH as the user you created.
Update your system
Make sure that you have the latest stable version of Ubuntu 16.04.
sudo apt-get update
Install Java.
sudo apt-get install default-jdk
Update the JAVA_HOME
variable
Find the directory for JAVA_HOME
.
update-alternatives --config java
Copy the directory, and then type the following.
nano /etc/environment
This will open up the file that contains environment variables.
Add JAVA_HOME
.
JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java"
The path in quotes is the path that you are using.
Save and close the file.
Reload the environment variables so that they take effect.
source /etc/environment
Check to make sure that it worked:
echo $JAVA_HOME
You will see the path you’ve entered.
Create a user to run the Tomcat web server
We will call this user ‘tomcat’, but you can use any name for this user.
groupadd tomcat
useradd -s /bin/false -g tomcat -d /opt/tomcat tomcat
Make sure that you know the version of Tomcat that you want to install.
For this tutorial, we will use version 8.5.24
, and the download link is as follows.
http://www-eu.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.5.24/bin/apache-tomcat-8.5.24.tar.gz
Remember to choose the download with a .gz
extension.
Make a directory for the Tomcat files.
mkdir /opt/tomcat
Download Tomcat.
cd
wget your-tomcat-link
Unzip the files into the tomcat folder.
tar xvf apache-tomcat-8*tar.gz -C /opt/tomcat --strip-components=1
You can press the “Tab
” key after typing apache
, since you only have one download in your folder.
Make sure that the folders have the correct permissions.
cd /opt/
sudo chown -R tomcat tomcat/
Display the JAVA_HOME
path again, so that you can copy it.
nano /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service
Configure Tomcat
Copy and paste the settings below into the tomcat.service
file you have just created. Edit the JAVA_HOME
path to the one that you copied. After this, save and close the file.
[Unit]
Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=forking
Environment=JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-amd64/jre
Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/temp/tomcat.pid
Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat
Environment=CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat
Environment='CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms512M -Xmx1024M -server -XX:+UseParallelGC'
Environment='JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom'
ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh
ExecStop=/opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
User=tomcat
Group=tomcat
UMask=0007
RestartSec=10
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Reload the SystemD daemon so that the service settings that were added are included.
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Start the Tomcat service.
sudo systemctl start tomcat
Check the status of your Tomcat server.
sudo systemctl status tomcat
Browse to http://your_ip_address:8080
You will see the Tomcat server landing page.
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