In this post we will cover how to install the Apache Tomcat 7 and jre 1.7 on CentOS 6 and RHEL 6. This process doesn’t use the rpm’s from the Redhat repositories, but uses the latest tar balls from Apache and Oracle. We will also be using service accounts to control Tomcat and its processes.

Download latest Tomcat from http://tomcat.apache.org/download-70.cgi. Version 7.0.40 is the curent version at the time of this post.
Download the latest Java 1.7 jdk from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html, click on the JDK download buton. You will want jdk-7u21-linux-x64.tar.gz tarball.
Copy the downloaded tarballs to /tmp directory on your server.

Change directory to /opt or the directory of your choice on the server. I am using /opt for this post to contain Java and Tomcat.

$ cd /opt

Make the tomcat directory and change to it.

$ mkdir tomcat
$ cd tomcat

This step is optional to create individual instances by name for tomcat. Doing this allows you to run multiple instances of tomcat on a server. For this example tomcat-inst1 is what we will be using.

$ mkdir tomcat-inst1
$ cd tomcat-inst1

untar Tomcat in the instance you will be running.

$ tar -xvzf /tmp/apache-tomcat-7.0.40.tar.gz

Create a symlink called tomcat-current. This will allow you to untar newer versions of Tomcat and juwst update the symlink.

$ ln -sf apache-tomcat-7.0.40 tomcat-current

Create tomcat service account and set the UID to 520

$ useradd -u 520 -c “Tomcat Service Account” -d /opt/tomcat -m -s /bin/bash tomcat

Change ownership of the tomcat directory to the tomcat user.

$ cd /opt
$ chown -R tomcat:tomcat tomcat

Create an init.d script to start the Tomcat instance at reboot. There is not one available when using Apache supplied tarball install. Copy the below code and save as tomcat-inst1 in /etc/init.d directory, modify the instance name variable.

#!/bin/bash
#
# Startup script for the Tomcat 7.0 Servlet/JSP Container
#
# chkconfig: 345 98 02
# description: Tomcat is the servlet container that is used in the
#              official Reference Implementation for the Java Servlet
#              and JavaServer Pages technologies.

# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

INSTANCE=tomcat-inst1
export INSTANCE
CATALINA_HOME=/app/tomcat/${INSTANCE}/tomcat-current

# Source configuration.
[ -f /etc/sysconfig/${INSTANCE} ] && . /etc/sysconfig/${INSTANCE}

RETVAL=0


start() {
    if [ -f /var/run/${INSTANCE}_restart ]
        then
        /bin/rm /var/run/${INSTANCE}_restart
    fi
    echo -n $"Starting $prog: "

    if [ ! -f /var/lock/subsys/${INSTANCE} ]; then
        
            su - tomcat -c "INST_NAME=${INSTANCE} $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh"
        

        if [ $RETVAL = 0 ]; then
            success $"$prog startup"
            touch /var/lock/subsys/${INSTANCE}
        else
            failure $"$prog startup"
        fi
    fi

    echo
    return $RETVAL
}

stop() {
    /bin/touch /var/run/${INSTANCE}_restart
    echo -n $"Stopping $prog: "

    if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/${INSTANCE} ]; then
        su - tomcat -c "$CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh -force"

        if [ $RETVAL = 0 ]; then
            success $"$prog shutdown"
            rm -f /var/lock/subsys/${INSTANCE}
        else
            failure $"$prog shutdown"
        fi
    fi

    echo
    return $RETVAL
}

stopforce() {
    /bin/touch /var/run/${INSTANCE}_restart
    echo -n $"Forcefully Stopping $prog: "

    if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/${INSTANCE} ]; then
        su - tomcat -c "$CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh -force"

        if [ $RETVAL = 0 ]; then
            success $"$prog shutdown"
            rm -f /var/lock/subsys/${INSTANCE}
        else
            failure $"$prog shutdown"
        fi
    fi

    echo
    return $RETVAL
}

status() {
    local base=${1##*/}
    if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/${base} ]; then
        echo $"${base} is running..."
        return 0
    else
        echo $"${base} is stopped."
        return 3
    fi
}

getpid() {
        tomcatpid=`ps auwwwx | grep -v grep |grep -i /${INSTANCE}/ | awk '{print $2}'`
        echo "The PID for ${INSTANCE} is ${tomcatpid}."
        echo
}

threaddump() {
        getpid
        kill -3 ${tomcatpid}
        echo "Thread dump has been sent to where stdout is logged."
        echo
}

# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
  start)
        start
        ;;
  stop)
        stop
        ;;
  stopforce)
        stopforce
        ;;
  status)
        status ${INSTANCE}
        ;;
  restart|reload)
        stopforce
        start
        ;;
  condrestart)
        if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/${INSTANCE} ] ; then
                stop
                start
        fi
        ;;
  getpid)
        getpid
        ;;
  threaddump)
        threaddump
        ;;
  *)
        echo $"Usage: $prog {start|stop|stopforce|restart|condrestart|reload|status|getpid|threaddump}"
        exit 1
esac

exit $RETVAL

Make the following changes
# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

INSTANCE=tomcat-inst1
export INSTANCE
CATALINA_HOME=/app/tomcat/${INSTANCE}/tomcat-current

Set init script to run at startup.

$ chkconfig --levels 345 tomcat-inst1 on

Setup Java jdk 1.7

$ cd /opt
$ mkdir java
$ cd java

Untar the tarball

$ tar -xzvf /tmp/jdk-7u21-linux-x64.tar.gz

Create the symlink

$ ln -sf jdk1.7.0_21 current

Create setenv.sh in /opt/tomcat/tomcat-inst1/tomcat-current/bin/ . In this exaple there is a ENV_LEVEL which you can omit the two lines or use them. This is for maintaining different developement levels set to correct environment (DEV, INT, CERT, PROD) if you want to use them.

#Java Home for this Tomcat Instance
JAVA_HOME=/app/java/current

#Set Java Options (Memory minimum/maximum?
JAVA_OPTS="-server -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m"

#Modify umask so that group has r+w
umask 02
CATALINA_PID=${CATALINA_HOME}/bin/catalina.pid

ENV_LEVEL=DEV
export ENV_LEVEL

$ chmod 755 setenv.sh
$ chown tomcat:tomcat setenv.sh

Modify tomcat-users.xml to set password and roles access.

$ cd /opt/tomcat/tomcat-inst1/tomcat-current/conf

Make a backup of the current file.

$ mv tomcat-users.xml tomcat-users.xml.orig

Create a new file with the following contents and set the passwords to your liking.

$ vi tomcat_users.xml

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

chmod 600 tomcat-users.xml
chown tomcat:tomcat tomcat-users.xml

Now we can start Tomcat up and should be working.