Installing Tomcat 6.x on CentOS 5

UPDATE: This post was revised to work with java6u10 and now includes instructions for automated startup config.

FYI: if you used this post before 11/06, there have been some major changes to the start up script. This new version is the most basic and easiest. ty.

This is a quick and dirty guide for installing Apache Tomcat 6.0.18 on CentOS5. It is based on detailed instructions for CentOS 4 and tomcat 6.0.13 here. If you get no luck, please check out this link for comprehensive explanation and adopt it to your platform.

Install pre-requisite

1. Download java JDK 6 Update 10 and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 10 bin (NOT RPM)

2. Open terminal, su to root and move downloaded files to /root directory

$ su root
Password:
# mv [.....]

3. Create java environment

# mkdir /usr/java
# cd /usr/java

4. Execute downloaded jdk and jre bins.

# sh /root/jre-6u10-linux-i586.bin
# sh /root/jdk-6u10-linux-i586.bin

5. verify install

# ls

you should see that your /usr/java directory now contains jdk1.6.0_10 and jre1.6.0_10 directories

Install overview

1. Download and extract Apache Ant (apache-ant-1.7.1-bin.tar.gz) to /usr/share

# cd /usr/share
# tar -xzf apache-ant-1.7.1-bin.tar.gz

2. Download and extract Apache Tomcat (apache-tomcat-6.0.18.tar.gz) to /usr/share

# tar -xzf apache-tomcat-6.0.18.tar.gz

3. Enable ant link

# ln -s /usr/share/apache-ant-1.7.1/bin/ant /usr/bin

4. Set up JAVA_HOME $env in catalina.sh

# cd /usr/share/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/bin
# vi catalina.sh

5. After the first line, add following

JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_10

6. Test config with Tomcat

# cd /usr/share/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/bin
# ./startup.sh

7. Check logs for errors

# less /usr/share/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/logs/catalina.out

8. Fix errors if any. Go to http://localhost:8080 for Tomcat's web interface.

Automate start up

1. Create script in /etc/init.d for automated start up/shutdown

# cd /etc/init.d

# vi tomcat

2. Place following in the file

#!/bin/bash

# chkconfig: 234 20 80

# description: Tomcat Server basic start/shutdown script

# processname: tomcat

JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_10

export JAVA_HOME

TOMCAT_HOME=/usr/share/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/bin

START_TOMCAT=/usr/share/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/bin/startup.sh

STOP_TOMCAT=/usr/share/apache-tomcat-6.0.18/bin/shutdown.sh

start() {

echo -n "Starting tomcat: "

cd $TOMCAT_HOME

${START_TOMCAT}

echo "done."

}

stop() {

echo -n "Shutting down tomcat: "

cd $TOMCAT_HOME

${STOP_TOMCAT}

echo "done."

}

case "$1" in

start)

start

;;

stop)

stop

;;

restart)

stop

sleep 10

start

;;

*)

echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"

esac

exit 0

2. Change permissions

# chmod 755 tomcat

3. Add script to system services

# chkconfig --add tomcat

4. Verify modifications (this script uses levels 2-4)

# chkconfig --level 234 tomcat on
# chkconfig --list tomcat

you should see that service using levels 2, 3 and 4:
tomcat 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:off 6:off

5. Test script start up/shutdown

# service tomcat start

# service tomcat stop

So, at this point, tomcat service will start automatically upon reboot. G'luck (: