In this article, we will have explained the necessary steps to install and configure Apache Tomcat on CentOS 8. Before continuing with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges. All the commands in this tutorial should be run as a non-root user.
Apache Tomcat is an open-source web server used to serve Java applications. It is an open-source implementation of Java Servlet, Java Server Pages, and Java Expression Language.
Install Apache Tomcat on CentOS
Step 1. The first command will update the package lists to ensure you get the latest version and dependencies.
sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm sudo dnf update
Step 2. Install Java.
Apache Tomcat requires Java to be installed, Now we install Java using the following command:
sudo dnf install java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel
Confirm Java version installed:
java -version
Step 3. Create Tomcat User and Group.
Tomcat service should not be run as the root user. So, create a regular Linux user for running the Tomcat service:
sudo groupadd --system tomcat sudo useradd -d /usr/share/tomcat -r -s /bin/false -g tomcat tomcat
Step 4. Install Tomcat.
First, download Apache Tomcat from the official website and save it in your working directory. At the time of writing this article, Tomcat v9.0.30 is available for the installation:
wget http://www-eu.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.30/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.30.tar.gz
Then, extract the Tomcat archive and create a new symbolic link to the folder:
tar -zxvf apache-tomcat-*.tar.gz mv apache-tomcat-*/* /opt/tomcat/
Change the ownership of the directory to the tomcat user:
chown -R tomcat:tomcat /opt/tomcat/
Step 5. Create Systemd Unit File.
Tomcat’s systemd service file requires a Java installation location. So, list the available Java versions on your system using the following command:
alternatives --list | grep ^java
Result:
java auto /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.222.b10-0.el8_0.x86_64/jre/bin/java
Run the following command to create tomcat.service unit file inside /etc/systemd/system/ directory:
nano /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service
[Unit] Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container Wants=network.target After=network.target [Service] Type=forking Environment=JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.222.b10-0.el8_0.x86_64/jre Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/temp/tomcat.pid Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat Environment='CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms512M -Xmx1G -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true' Environment='JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true' ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh ExecStop=/opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh SuccessExitStatus=143 User=tomcat Group=tomcat UMask=0007 RestartSec=10 Restart=always [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Notify systemd that we created a new unit file and start the Tomcat service by executing:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl start tomcat
Step 6. Configure The Firewall Settings.
If your firewall running on your CentOS system and you want to access the tomcat interface from the outside of your local network you’ll need to open the port 8080:
firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=8080/tcp firewall-cmd --reload
Step 7. Configure Tomcat Web Management Interface.
Tomcat users and roles are defined in the tomcat-users.xml file. This file is a template with comments and examples describing how to configure the create a user or role:
nano /opt/tomcat/conf/tomcat-users.xml
Now add username and password for admin-GUI and manager-GUI. Make sure you are setting a strong username and password:
<role rolename="admin-gui,manager-gui"/> <user username="admin" password="tomcat" roles="manager-gui,admin-gui"/>
By default, Apache Tomcat restricts access to Manager and Host Manager apps to connections coming from the server also. You should remove these restrictions.
To change IP address restriction open the following files. Open Manager app context file using below command:
nano /opt/tomcat/webapps/manager/META-INF/context.xml
Allow everyone to have access to Web manager:
allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1|.*" />
Open Host Manager app context file using below command:
nano /opt/tomcat/webapps/host-manager/META-INF/context.xml
Allow everyone to have access to the Host manager.
allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1|.*" />
Remember to restart the Tomcat service each time you edit Tomcat configuration files for changes to take effect:
sudo systemctl restart tomcat
Step 8. Test the Tomcat Installation.
Open your browser and type: HTTP://<your-domain_or_IP-address>:8080
You should get the following output for successful installation:
Now use Manager App visiting http://YOUR-DOMAIN_NAME_OR_IP-ADDRESS:8080/manager/html.
Congratulation, you have learned how to install and configure Apache Tomcat on CentOS 8. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.