In this article, we will have explained the necessary steps to install Apache Tomcat on Rocky Linux 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 for deploying Java-based web applications. Java servlets are small programs defining how a server handles requests and responses. Tomcat acts as an open-source implementation of the Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages, Java Expression Language, and Java WebSocket technologies.
Install Apache Tomcat on Rocky Linux 8
Step 1. First, before you start installing any package on your Rocky Linux server, we always recommend making sure that all system packages are updated.
sudo dnf install epel-release sudo dnf update sudo dnf upgrade
Step 2. Install Java on Rocky Linux.
Run the following command below to install OpenJDK:
sudo dnf install java-11-openjdk-devel
Once the installation completes, you can run the command below to verify the version:
java -version
Step 3. Create Tomcat User and Group.
We create a new system user to minimize any security risk by running Tomcat as a root user:
sudo useradd -m -U -d /opt/tomcat -s /bin/false tomcat
Step 4. Install Apache Tomcat on Rocky Linux.
Installing Tomcat on your Rocky Linux system is straightforward, All you need to do is open a terminal and run the following command:
wget https://downloads.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-10/v10.0.5/bin/apache-tomcat-10.0.5.tar.gz
Next, extract the file to the /opt/tomcat
directory:
sudo tar -xf apache-tomcat-${VERSION}.tar.gz -C /opt/tomcat/
Then, create a symbolic link to the latest version of Tomcat that points to Tomcat’s installation directory:
sudo ln -s /opt/tomcat/apache-tomcat-${VERSION} /opt/tomcat/latest
Change the ownership of the directory to the tomcat user:
sudo chown -R tomcat:tomcat /opt/tomcat
Step 5. Create Systemd Unit File.
By default, we won’t have a Systemd unit file for Tomcat like the Apache server to stop, start and enable its services. Now we create a service file for the Tomcat server so that it can be started automatically:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service
Add the following file:
[Unit] Description=Apache Tomcat 10 Servlet container Wants=network.target After=network.target [Service] Type=forking User=tomcat Group=tomcat Environment="JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jre" Environment="JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.security.egd=file:///dev/urandom" Environment="CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat/latest" Environment="CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat/latest" Environment="CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/latest/temp/tomcat.pid" Environment="CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms512M -Xmx1024M -server -XX:+UseParallelGC" ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/latest/bin/startup.sh ExecStop=/opt/tomcat/latest/bin/shutdown.sh Restart=always [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save and close the file when you are finished. After successfully creating systemd
unit file for tomcat, start its service using the below-given commands:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable tomcat --now
Step 6. Configure Firewall.
To allow external access to Tomcat, you need to open TCP port 8080 on Firewalld, if it is running:
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=8080/tcp sudo firewall-cmd --reload
Step 7. Access Apache Tomcat Web UI.
Now access Tomcat using the URL http://your-server-ip-address:8080
. You should see the following screen:
That’s all you need to do to install Tomcat on Rocky Linux 8. I hope you find this quick tip helpful. For further reading on Tomcat, please refer to their official knowledge base. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below.