2.5.3. Starting and Stopping Tomcat

Tomcat can be started, stopped, and configured to start automatically at boot time either from the command line or using a graphical tool.

The tomcat6 or tomcat7 services can be started and stopped using the service command as root on a console window (as is typical of a network service):

To start and stop the tomcat6 service:

service tomcat6 start

service tomcat6 start

service tomcat6 stop

service tomcat6 stop

To start and stop the tomcat7 service:

service tomcat7 start

service tomcat7 start

service tomcat7 stop

service tomcat7 stop

Once the tomcat service has been started, you can verify that it is running by pointing your web browser to http://localhost:8080.

The tomcat service runs under a new tomcat system user. Due to file system permissions it may be necessary to use the su -s /bin/bash tomcat system command to deploy the application under the webapps directory. Alternatively, a developer can be listed in the tomcat user group by the system administrator. The best approach is to use the Web Console (URL above) to deploy the application.

The behavior at boot can be controlled with the chkconfig command (see the chkconfig man page for further details).

Configuration can then be altered in the /etc/sysconfig/tomcat6 file for Tomcat version 6 and the /etc/sysconfig/tomcat7 file for Tomcat version 7.