Fanatical Solutions

Prerequisites

Before we begin, we will need to have a Java 2 SDK installed. This document is based on the IBM Java 2 SDK v 1.4.1. With Tomcat 5, because of dramatic changes in Linux in the last year, there are a few things you will need to be aware of.
If you are using Red Hat 9, Fedora Core or any Linux distribution that uses the NPTL (Native POSIX Thread Library), you may have problems getting Java to run properly. If you’re getting frequent segmentation faults, you might want to turn off NPTL. My advice is to get the latest versions of everything, that is, install version 1.4.1 of the Java 2 SDK or better, and get the 2.6 Linux kernel.

Downloading The Software

You can find the Tomcat binaries at : http://jakarta.apache.org/site/binindex.cgi. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the links for Tomcat 5.x, 4.x and the web server connectors.
With Tomcat 5, there are now 7 files available for download. If you are running Linux/UNIX, the package you are looking for is the tarball, which at the time of this writing is 5.0.18 tar.gz. Click on the link and your download should start automatically.

Installing The Software

There are many ways that you can get Tomcat installed on your Linux system. You could use the rpm’s that are now available on jpackage.org or the tarballs from the Jakarta site. This document covers only the Jakarta tarballs. I have never used the rpm packages before.
If you have already downloaded the binary, simply copy it to the directory you want to install it under and expand the file. For example, if I downloaded the Tomcat tar file into /home/someuser/downloads and wanted to install it under /opt, here is what I would do. As root user:

# cp /home/someuser/downloads/jakarta-tomcat-5.x.xx.tar.gz /opt
# tar -zxvf jakarta-tomcat-5.x.xx.tar.gz

A directory called jakarta-tomcat-5.x.xx will be created and the Tomcat files will expand under it.
Previously, I would have recommended that the jakarta-tomcat-5.x.xx directory be renamed to just tomcat. However, because I expect Tomcat 5 to be updated more frequently for now, since it has only just been released, I would instead recommend creating a symbolic link to a tomcat directory.
# ln -s jakarta-tomcat-5.0.25 tomcat
In order for Tomcat to startup and shutdown, you will also need to add an environment variable pointing to the Tomcat directory (CATALINA_HOME), and one variable pointing to your Java SDK directory (JAVA_HOME). I will make the following assumptions:
JAVA_HOME
Java is installed into /opt/IBMJava2-141.
CATALINA_HOME
Tomcat is installed into /opt/jakarta-tomcat-5.x.xx and symlinked to /opt/tomcat.
Insert the following lines inside /etc/profile or /root/.bashrc.

# export JAVA_HOME=/opt/IBMJava2-141
# export CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat

Starting and Stopping Tomcat
Before we begin, we will need to ensure that CATALINA_HOME and JAVA_HOME are correctly set. To do this, we open a terminal and type the following :

# echo $CATALINA_HOME
# echo $JAVA_HOME

If you get a blank line, or if the directory points anywhere besides where it is supposed to, you will have to correct these environment variables first, before continuing.
If everything is fine, you can start Tomcat with the following command. As root,

# $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh

To check if Tomcat is running fine, you should open a browser and point the URL to http://localhost:8080. You should see the default Tomcat welcome page. It would be a good idea, at this point, to browse the documentation or try out the example servlets and JavaServer Pages samples.
To stop Tomcat, as root,

# $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh

If Tomcat does not start and you downloaded the zip file, the cause is probably due to permissions. Ensure that the following files are
executable : inside $CATALINA_HOME/bin directory,

# chmod +x startup.sh
# chmod +x shutdown.sh
# chmod +x tomcat.sh 

After you have made the files executable, try starting and stopping Tomcat again.