Master Tomcat: Step‑by‑Step Installation, Configuration, and Nginx Integration

Tomcat

Overview

Tomcat is a free open‑source web application server written in Java, lightweight and commonly used for developing and debugging JSP programs, especially in small‑to‑medium systems.

Installation

1. Install via yum

# yum install tomcat* -y

2. Binary installation

Install JDK first

# rpm -ivh jdk-8u201-linux-x64.rpm
# export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.8.0_201-amd64
# export CLASSPATH=$JAVA_HOME/lib/tools.jar:$JAVA_HOME/lib/dt.jar
# export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
# tar zxvf apache-tomcat-9.0.16.tar.gz
# cp -r apache-tomcat-9.0.16 /usr/local/tomcat
# useradd -s /sbin/nologin tomcat
# chown tomcat:tomcat /usr/local/tomcat -R
# cat > /usr/lib/systemd/system/tomcat.service <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Tomcat
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/usr/local/tomcat/bin/startup.sh
ExecStop=/usr/local/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
RestartSec=3
PrivateTmp=true
User=tomcat
Group=tomcat

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
# systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl start tomcat.service

After starting, Tomcat listens on ports 8080 (HTTP), 8005 (shutdown), and 8009 (AJP).

Configuration files and core components

Directory

Function

bin

Startup and shutdown scripts such as catalina.sh, startup.sh, shutdown.sh

conf

Configuration files like server.xml, context.xml, tomcat-users.xml, web.xml

lib

Jar libraries; usually unchanged unless adding third‑party libs

logs

Log files, e.g., catalina.out

temp

Temporary files generated at runtime

webapps

Deployed web application resources

work

Work directory, often cleared when upgrading

conf sub‑directory files

File

Description

server.xml

Main global configuration

web.xml

Default deployment configuration for all webapps; can be overridden per app

context.xml

Default Context configuration for all webapps; can be overridden per app

tomcat-users.xml

User authentication accounts and passwords

catalina.policy

Security policy when Tomcat is started with security option

catalina.properties

Environment variables, classloader paths, JVM tuning parameters

logging.properties

Log system configuration (levels, paths)

Port numbers

8080 – default HTTP port

8005 – shutdown port

8009 – AJP connector for Apache integration

Virtual host configuration

# Create directories for each virtual host
mkdir -pv /data/web{1,2,3}/ROOT/

echo web1 > /data/web1/ROOT/index.html
echo web2 > /data/web2/ROOT/index.html
echo web3 > /data/web3/ROOT/index.html
chown -R tomcat.tomcat /data/

Verify with curl:

# curl www.a.com:8080   # returns web1
# curl www.b.com:8080   # returns web2
# curl www.c.com:8080   # returns web3

Tomcat and Nginx static‑dynamic separation

Install and configure Nginx, then proxy JSP requests to Tomcat while serving static files directly.

# Stop firewall
systemctl stop firewalld.service
setenforce 0
# Install EPEL and Nginx
yum install epel-release.noarch -y
yum install nginx -y
# Edit /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
upstream web {
    server 192.168.10.40;
    server 192.168.10.50;
}
location / {
    proxy_pass http://web;
}
location ~\.jsp$ {
    proxy_pass http://192.168.10.60:8080;
}
location ~\.(jpg|html)$ {
    root /usr/share/nginx/html;
}