Installing Tomcat From Scratch

Tomcat, a widely used Java web server, is favored for its simplicity in getting started, often requiring just downloading and extracting its deployment archive. To optimally set up a Tomcat server, it is important to have the correct version of Java installed, with Tomcat 7 needing at least Java 6, Tomcat 8 needing Java 7, and Tomcat 9 needing Java 8. Tomcat can work with either the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or the Java Development Kit (JDK), with a preference for JRE unless development tools are needed. OpenJDK and Oracle JDK are both viable options for running Tomcat, with the choice often depending on the operating system and ease of installation. Tomcat can be downloaded in various formats depending on the operating system, with specific considerations for Linux and Windows. Configuring the JAVA_HOME environment variable is crucial for both systems to ensure Tomcat scripts can locate the Java executable. Tomcat can be manually launched or installed as a service, with Windows offering easier service installation through a wizard and Linux requiring custom service definition scripts. Additionally, user configuration is necessary for accessing Tomcat’s administration tools, which is done by defining users and roles in the conf/tomcat-users.xml file.