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1. Make sure a user, tomcat, has been created with no privileges, no shell. (e.g. tomcat:x:506:99::/home/tomcat:/sbin/nologin).  If you are unsure how to do this please contact SysAdmin for assistance (e.g. sudo useradd -M -s /usr/bin/nologin -g nobody tomcat).
   
   

System configuration:
The following instructions configure various server components to work in conjunction with the Tomcat server and Java.  Within you find instructions on best practice for installing init.d script for Tomcat and how to create both $CATALINA_HOME and $JAVA_HOME for all users.

$CATALINA_HOME

1. • If an entry for catalina.sh does not already exist in /etc/profile.d/catalina.sh then you will need to create one; sudo vi /etc/profile.d/catalina.sh
     In this this file put the following line:
          export $CATALINA_HOME=/opt/apache-tomcat/current
     If the file already exists be sure it has the above entry.

$JAVA_HOME

• • If an entry for java.sh does not already exist in /etc/profile.d/java.sh then you will need to create one;  sudo vi /etc/profile.d/java.sh
    In this file put the following line:
    export $JAVA_HOME=/opt/java/current
    If the file already exists be sure it has the above entry.

/etc/init.d/tomcat7
The following configuration is the script that will start/stop/restart the Tomcat server both from the command line and executed when the system is restarted.  From the command line usually executed by calling - sudo service tomcat7 stop/start/restart

• • If an entry for tomcat7 does not exist in /etc/init.d/tomcat7 then you will need to create one.  Attached to this issue is a file; 

Tomcat installation/update:

1. If  the server does not already have a directory, /opt/apache-tomcat, then create one (sudo mkdir /opt/apache-tomcat) and download the tomcat installation to this directory. Be sure to check the sha1 or md5 hash on the download site is the same as for the downloaded tomcat file (e.g. openssl dgst -md5 apache-tomcat-7.0.xx.zip).
2. Untar the tomcat distribution and delete the tar file (sudo tar cxf apache-tomcat-7.0.xx.tar.zip).
3. If the directory, /opt/apache-tomcat, did not exist create a "current" symlink to the new tomcat server directory (e.g. sudo ln -s apache-tomcat-7.0.xx current). If the directory, /opt/apache-tomcat, did exist and the link, current, was already there then you will need to sudo unlink current before linking it again.  NOTE: The reason for symlinking the directory is so any references to the current tomcat server (e.g. $CATALINA_HOME, /etc/init.d/tomcat7...) do not have to be updated.  This simplifies maintenance.
4. This concludes the steps necessary to install or update the version of Tomcat. Please see Tomcat configuration for steps required to configure Tomcat.

Tomcat configuration:
The following instructions configure various parts of the Tomcat server.  It is recommended that all configurations are applied.

Tomcat should always be started by the tomcat user and never as root or another user. Please see the attached tomcat7 script for an example of the script that should be in /etc/init.d/

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