HOWTO install and configure TOMCAT for JAVA development

This tutorial is not been written with systems administrators in mind. Indeed is a quick guide to help JAVA,J2EE developers to have in 10 minutes an environment where they can start coding.

Any PIII or higher PC with minimum 512MB of RAM and more than 700MB disk space along with any Linux distribution.

NOTES:

Symbol $ means the shell prompt and you do not need to type it. Just open a terminal in your Linux box.

Step 1

Download JAVA SDK from Sun's web site.Visit the following url:http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp and choose the JDK 6 and then the Linux self-extracting file; that is jdk-6-linux-i586.bin (filename might be different if there is a new version available for download)

As soon as you finish downloading the files execute the following commands:

$chmod +x jdk-6-linux-i586.bin
$./jdk-6-linux-i586.bin
$mv jdk-6-linux-i586.bin /usr/local/java-sdk-6
$vi /etc/profile

Edit the above file and put at the end of it the following:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java-sdk-6
export CATALINA_HOME=/usr/local/java-sdk-6

then save the file (press wq! in order to save the file and exit) and reboot your machine or type the following:
$source /etc/profile

Test that the JAVA_HOME environment has been correctly set by typing:
$echo $JAVA_HOME

You must see the /usr/local/java-sdk-6 output in your terminal. If so then JAVA is installed successfully.
If you want to upgrade in the future the 6 version to 7 or whatever just do the same procedure as described above.
 

Step 2

Download and Install Tomcat.
Tomcat is not as good as JBOSS or other application servers but at least is free and good enough for development.
Download tomcat from:
http://apache.otenet.gr/dist/tomcat/tomcat-5/v5.5.20/bin/apache-tomcat-5.5.20.tar.gz

Then execute the following commands:
$tar -xvf apache-tomcat-5.5.20.tar.gz –gzip
$mv apache-tomcat-5.5.20 /usr/local/tomcat5.5.20
$cd /usr/local/tomcat5.5.20/bin
$./startup.sh

You should be able to see the Welcome page of Tomcat at http://localhost:8080
To stop Tomcat just issue the following command:
$/usr/local/tomcat5.5.20/bin/shutdown.sh

Check if process is not running by executing the following command:
$ps -ax | grep java
You should see no JAVA processes at all.

Any jsp, servlet or whatever you code needs to be placed inside the ROOT folder of Tomcat in order to be able to run it like http://localhost:8080/mytestpage.jsp
For Tomcat configuration read its documentation.
This simple HOWTO is just to have Java and Tomcat up and running for development in 10 minutes.
IF you have any questions or want us to make an installation and configuration to your PC/server please contact us.