Install Java 6.


<pre class="brush: bash">

 apt-get install openjdk-6-jre

</pre>


Dowload and install Tomcat 7.



<pre class="brush: bash">

 wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/apache/tomcat/
	tomcat-7/v7.0.19/bin/apache-tomcat-7.0.19.tar.gz
 tar xvfz apache-tomcat-7.0.19.tar.gz
 mv apache-tomcat-7.0.19 /opt/tomcat		
 chmod +x /opt/tomcat/bin/*.sh

</pre>



Create Linux tomcat user and group


<pre class="brush: bash">
 groupadd tomcat
 useradd -g tomcat -d /opt/tomcat tomcat
 usermod -G www-data tomcat
 chown tomcat:tomcat /opt/tomcat -R
</pre>





Create Tomcat startup script. Save it as tomcat in /etc/init.d. The script below is set to use 128M heap size. Change it to suit your needs.


<pre class="brush: bash; highlight: 6">

 #!/bin/sh

 CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat; export CATALINA_HOME
 JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk; export JAVA_HOME
 TOMCAT_OWNER=tomcat; export TOMCAT_OWNER
 JAVA_OPTS="-Xms128M -Xmx128M"; export JAVA_OPTS

 start() {
 echo -n "Starting Tomcat: "
 su $TOMCAT_OWNER -c $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
 
 }
 stop() {
 echo -n "Stopping Tomcat: "
 su $TOMCAT_OWNER -c $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
 }

 ##

 case "$1" in
 start)
 start
 ;;
 stop)
 stop
 ;;
 restart)
 stop
 start
 ;;
 *)
 echo $"Usage: tomcat {start|stop|restart}"
 exit
 esac 


</pre>



Create your new tomcat service.



<pre class="brush: bash">

 chmod +x /etc/init.d/tomcat
 update-rc.d tomcat defaults

</pre>	
	



Create Tomcat server user.


<pre class="brush: xml">

 &lt;tomcat-users&gt;
 	&lt;role rolename="manager" /&gt;
 	&lt;role rolename="manager-gui" /&gt;
 	&lt;role rolename="admin"/>
 	&lt;role rolename="admin-gui" /&gt;
 	&lt;user username="{USER}" password="{PASSWORD}"
 roles="admin,admin-gui,manager,manager-gui" /&gt;
 &lt;/tomcat-users&gt;	

</pre>




Start tomcat instance

<pre class="brush: bash">

 /etc/init.d/tomcat start

</pre>


Test you now tomcat installation


<pre class="brush: bash">

 http://{your-server}:8080

</pre>


You should see the Tomcat administration page.



Install mod_jk Apache connector. This is the Apache module that would allow communication between the webserver (httpd) and Apache Tomcat.


<pre class="brush: bash">

 apt-get install libapache2-mod-jk

</pre>



Create mod_jk worker. The configuration of Tomcat process that would execute requests in behalf of the webserver. 


<pre class="brush: bash">

 vi /etc/apache2/workers.properties
	
	
</pre>

<pre class="brush: bash">

 workers.tomcat_home=/opt/tomcat
 workers.java_home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk
 ps=/
 worker.list=default
 worker.default.port=8009
 worker.default.host=localhost
 worker.default.type=ajp13
 worker.default.lbfactor=1

</pre>



Create mod_jk configuration file


<pre class="brush: bash">
	
 vi /etc/apache2/conf.d/jk.conf

</pre>

<pre class="brush: bash">

 &lt;ifmodule mod_jk.c&gt;
 	JkWorkersFile /etc/apache2/workers.properties
 	JkLogFile /var/log/apache2/mod_jk.log
 	JkLogLevel error
 &lt;/ifmodule&gt;

</pre>



Create virtual host and non Tomcat subdomains. This setup is useful if you are planning to install scripts like webalizer or phpmyadmin, etc or planning to create non Tomcat apps. Note that acesses like yourdomin.com/{directory} is handled by Tomcat and {directory} is expected to be in your tomcat webapps directory. Subdomains will work just make sure to update your DNS zone for your subdomains. Save your file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/. 


<pre class="brush: bash">

 NameVirtualHost your-server-ip-address

 &lt;virtualhost yourdomain.com&gt;
 	JkMount /* default
 	ServerName yourdomain.com
 	ServerAdmin admin@emil.com
 	DocumentRoot /opt/tomcat/webapps
 	ErrorLog /opt/tomcat/logs/error.log
 	CustomLog /opt/tomcat/logs/access.log common
 	&lt;directory /opt/tomcat/webapps&gt;
 	Options -Indexes
 	&lt;/directory&gt;
 &lt;/virtualhost&gt;
 #
 # For non Tomcat subdomains
 #
 &lt;virtualhost subdomain.yourdoman.com&gt;
 ServerName sudomain.yourdomain.com
 DocumentRoot /where/ever/
 ..... more directives
 &lt;/virtualhost&gt;

</pre>

&lt;virtualhost yourdomain.com&gt; and 
&lt;virtualhost subdomain.yourdomain.com&gt; (as above) 
can be replaced with 
&lt;virtualhost server-ip-address&gt;. 
Either way should work just properly.





Enable your domain and restart Apache2.


<pre class="brush: bash">

 a2ensite yourdomain.com
 /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

</pre>



Create tomcat host.


The setup below sets your {YOUR-WEB-APP} as your tomcat ROOT as indicated by path="". Set path="/" to run your app as yourdomain.com/webapp rather than yourdomain.com. Update the Host entry of your server.xml located at /opt/tomcat/conf as shown below: 
 




<pre class="brush: xml; highlight: 4">

 &lt;Host name="yourdomain.com" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true"
 autoDeploy="true" &gt;

 	&lt;Context path="" 
		docBase="/opt/tomcat/webapps/{YOUR-WEB-APP-NAME}" 
		debug="0" reloadable="true" /&gt; 
 &lt!- please notes on logs down below -->
 	&lt;Valve className=
		"org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve" 
		directory="/opt/tomcat/logs" prefix="tomcat_access_" 
 suffix=".log" pattern="common" resolveHosts="false" /&gt;

 &lt;Alias>www.yourdomain.com&lt;/Alias&gt; 

 &lt;/Host&gt;

</pre>



Please note that we have created two loggers that would create 2 identical access logs. Apache generates logs for us through mod_jk earlier in this blog in our virtual host setup. As shown above, Tomcat also generates access logs via AccessLogValve we created in sever.xml. 



I choose to only keep logs generated by mod_jk/Apache2. 



Restart Tomcat


<pre class="brush: bash">

 /etc/init.d/tomcat restart

</pre>




That's it. Deploy your web application to /opt/tomcat/webapps. Run your web app as shown below.



<pre class="brush: bash">

 http://yourdomain.com

</pre>



Good luck.

How to setup Tomcat 7 as your primary webserver on Debian Squeeze