How To Install Apache Tomcat on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache Tomcat on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Apache Tomcat is an open-source web server and servlet container developed by the Apache Software Foundation. It implements the Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages (JSP), Java Unified Expression Language, and Java WebSocket specifications from Sun Microsystems and provides a web server environment for Java code to run in.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Apache Tomcat 9 on a Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 18.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Apache Tomcat on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Step 2. Installing Java.

Apache Tomcat requires Java to be installed on your server. By default, Java is not available in Ubuntu’s repository. Add the Oracle Java PPA to Apt with the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt install oracle-java8-installer
sudo apt install oracle-java8-set-default

Verify the Java version by running the following command:

java -version

Step 2. Installing Apache Tomcat on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

The first thing to do is to go to Apache Tomcat’s download page and download the latest stable version of Apache Tomcat, At the moment of writing this article it is version 9:

cd /opt
wget http://www-us.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.10/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.10.zip
tar -xvf apache-tomcat-9.0.10.zip
mv apache-tomcat-9.0.8 /opt/tomcat9

Next, create a directory for Tomcat files:

sudo useradd -r tomcat9 --shell /bin/false

Then give the user control of the directory:

sudo chown -R tomcat9 /opt/tomcat9

Step 3. Configure Apache Tomcat.

Configure Tomcat users so they can access admin/manager sections. You can do this by adding the users in the conf/tomcat-users.xml file with your favorite text editor. Add this text to the file:

nano /opt/tomcat9/conf/tomcat-users.xml

Place the following two lines just above the last line.

<!-- user manager can access only manager section -->
<role rolename="manager-gui" />
<user username="manager" password="_SECRET_PASSWORD_" roles="manager-gui" />

<!-- user admin can access manager and admin section both -->
<role rolename="admin-gui" />
<user username="admin" password="_SECRET_PASSWORD_" roles="manager-gui,admin-gui" />

Next, run the commands below to create a server account for Tomcat:

nano /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service

Add lines below into the file and save:

[Unit]
Description=Tomcat9
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=forking
User=tomcat9
Group=tomcat9
Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat9/tomcat9.pid
Environment=JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/
Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat9
Environment=CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat9
Environment="CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
Environment="JAVA_OPTS=-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Dnet.sf.ehcache.skipUpdateCheck=true -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -XX:+UseParNewGC"
ExecStart=/opt/tomcat9/bin/startup.sh
ExecStop=/opt/tomcat9/bin/shutdown.sh
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and exit and reload the systemd service:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start tomcat.service
systemctl enable tomcat.service

You can verify the service running, by default tomcat runs on port no 8080.

[root@idroot ~]# netstat -antup | grep 8080
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8080                0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN

Step 4. Accessing Apache Tomcat.

Tomcat server default works on port 8080. Access tomcat in the web browser by connecting your server on port 8080. If you are using a firewall, please open port 80 to enable access to the control panel:

http://your-domain.com:8080

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Apache Tomcat. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing Apache Tomcat 9 in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Apache Tomcat website.