Tomcat 9.0.12 Released — Here’s How to Install / Upgrade on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 LTS

Apache Tomcat, an open source implementation of the Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages, Java Expression Language and Java WebSocket developed by the Apache Software Foundation has recently been updated to version 9.0.12…

This brief tutorial will show students and new users how to install / upgrade Tomcat to version 9.0.12 on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 LTS servers…

This release brings some bug fixes and correction as well as enhancements with some modules, including an improvement in handling of path parameters, process requests, a potential fix to deadlocks and corrupt response bodies….

For more about this release, please check it changelog page…

Below is a complete changelog of what was included with this release…

Tomcat requires Java JDK to be installed in order to function… To install the original Java package, follow the guide below:

The easiest way to install Oracle Java JDK 8 on Ubuntu is via a third party PPA… To add that PPA, run the commands below

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java

After running the commands above, you should see a prompt to accept the PPA key onto Ubuntu… accept and continue

Now that the PPA repository has been added to Ubuntu, run the commands below to download Oracle Java 8 installer…. the installer should install the latest Java JDK 8 on your Ubuntu machines.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install oracle-java8-installer

When you run the commands above you’ll be prompted to access the license terms of the software… accept and continue..

Set Oracle JDK8 as default, to do that, install the oracle-java8-set-default package. This will automatically set the JAVA env variable.

sudo apt install oracle-java8-set-default

Now that JAVA is installed, run the commands below to set its home directory….

sudo nano /etc/environment

Then copy and paste the hightlighted line below and save the file…

PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games"
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle
export JAVA_HOME

After that run the commands below…

source /etc/environment

When you run echo $JAVA_HOME  you should now see Java home directory…

Step 2: Download Tomcat Packages

Now that Java JDK is installed, run the commands below to donwnload Tomcat packages..

cd /tmp && wget http://mirrors.sonic.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.12/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.12.tar.gz

Then run the commands below to extract the downloaded packages.

tar -xzf apache-tomcat-9.0.12.tar.gz

Create a directory for Tomcat files… and move the files there by running the commands below….

sudo mv apache-tomcat-9.0.12 /opt/tomcat9

Create Tomcat 9 user by running the commands below… this users will own the Tomcat directory content..

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

Then give Tomcat 9 user control of the directory…

sudo chown -R tomcat9 /opt/tomcat9

Step 3: Configure Tomcat9 Service

Now that the pakcage is extracted, run the commands to open Tomcat configuration file for its default user

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

Then create an account with password for the user and save by copying and pasting the line below into the file.. just before the </tomcat-users>

<role rolename="manager-gui"/>
<role rolename="admin-gui"/>
<user username="admin" password="password_here" roles="manager-gui,admin-gui"/>

Save the file and exti..

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

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service

then copy and paste the 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.

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

Now, open your browser and browse to the local server IP or hostname

http://localhost:8080

and you should see Tomcat default page..

Click on the Manager App to logon to the backend page…

Enjoy!

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