Installing Apache Tomcat 5.5 on Debian 4 (Etch) Linux

If you need to install and start Apache Tomcat quickly, probably this article can help you.

1) Sun JDK 5 need to be installed. It can be installed from Debian repository with unstable software

Add to /etc/apt/sources.list following lines (if not present yet):

# for sun-java packages in unstable
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ unstable non-free
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ unstable non-free

Update apt cache:

koba@alpha:~$ sudo apt-get update

Install jdk:

koba@alpha:~$ sudo apt-get install sun-java5-jdk

Make sure that java is installed:

koba@alpha:~$ java -version
java version "1.5.0_10"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_10-b03)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_10-b03, mixed mode, sharing)

2) Installing Apache Tomcat:

Install Tomcat:

koba@alpha:~$ sudo apt-get install tomcat5.5
koba@alpha:~$ sudo apt-get install tomcat5.5-admin
koba@alpha:~$ sudo apt-get install tomcat5.5-webapps

To verify that Tomcat is running just navigate to http://localhost:8180/ in your browser (make sure you have replaced ‘localhost’ with your server ip or name)

3) Controlling server:

You can start/stop or restart Tomcat using following command:

koba@alpha:/$ sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 [start | stop | restart]

4) Configuring ‘admin’ and ‘manager’ applications:

You need to configure some user to have admin and manager roles. For example you can do it with ‘tomcat’ user. Stop server and edit /var/lib/tomcat5.5/conf/tomcat-users.xml file to look like:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<tomcat-users>
        <role rolename="admin"/>
        <role rolename="manager"/>
        <role rolename="tomcat"/>
        <user username="tomcat"
              password="tomcatpassword"
              roles="tomcat,admin,manager"/>
</tomcat-users>

Start tomcat

Now you can use manager application at http://localhost:8180/manager/html.
Your user will be ‘tomcat’ and password will be ‘tomcatpassword’