Configure Tomcat service

These instructions are related to installing and running Tomcat 7 as a service, which means that will be launched at system boot and will be closed properly on system shutdown.

Running as a Linux Service

For security reasons you shouldn't run Tomcat as root. It is better to create a user named openkm and run Tomcat from him:

$ sudo adduser openkm

Create a file with the script:

$ sudo vim /etc/init.d/tomcat

#!/bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          tomcat
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start and stop Apache Tomcat
# Description:       Enable Apache Tomcat service provided by daemon.
### END INIT INFO
 
ECHO=/bin/echo
TEST=/usr/bin/test
TOMCAT_USER=openkm
TOMCAT_HOME=/home/openkm/tomcat-7.0.27
TOMCAT_START_SCRIPT=$TOMCAT_HOME/bin/startup.sh
TOMCAT_STOP_SCRIPT=$TOMCAT_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
 
$TEST -x $TOMCAT_START_SCRIPT || exit 0
$TEST -x $TOMCAT_STOP_SCRIPT || exit 0
 
start() {
    $ECHO -n "Starting Tomcat"
    su - $TOMCAT_USER -c "$TOMCAT_START_SCRIPT &"
    $ECHO "."
}
 
stop() {
    $ECHO -n "Stopping Tomcat"
    su - $TOMCAT_USER -c "$TOMCAT_STOP_SCRIPT 60 -force &"
    while [ "$(ps -fu $TOMCAT_USER | grep java | grep tomcat | wc -l)" -gt "0" ]; do
        sleep 5; $ECHO -n "."
    done
    $ECHO "."
}
 
case "$1" in
    start)
        start
        ;;
    stop)
        stop
        ;;
    restart)
        stop
        sleep 30
        start
        ;;
    *)
        $ECHO "Usage: tomcat {start|stop|restart}"
        exit 1
esac
exit 0

And make it executable:

$ sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/tomcat

Now update the run-levels:

$ sudo update-rc.d tomcat defaults
 Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/tomcat ...
   /etc/rc0.d/K20tomcat -> ../init.d/tomcat
   /etc/rc1.d/K20tomcat -> ../init.d/tomcat
   /etc/rc6.d/K20tomcat -> ../init.d/tomcat
   /etc/rc2.d/S20tomcat -> ../init.d/tomcat
   /etc/rc3.d/S20tomcat -> ../init.d/tomcat
   /etc/rc4.d/S20tomcat -> ../init.d/tomcat
   /etc/rc5.d/S20tomcat -> ../init.d/tomcat

start Tomcat service:

$ sudo service tomcat start

stop Tomcat service:

$ sudo service tomcat stop

It's also a good idea to configure Tomcat memory utilization. Edit the file $TOMCAT_HOME/bin/setenv.sh and edit the parameter JAVA_OPTS where you can increase the system memory managed by the JVM (Java Virtual Machine):

JAVA_OPTS="-Xms256m -Xmx1024m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dfile.encoding=utf-8"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$CATALINA_HOME/lib/sigar

This example is for a system with 2 GB of RAM.

Configure on Redhat / CentOS

Should be the same as in Ubuntu / Debian.

Running as a Windows Service

Donwload and install 32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer from http://tomcat.apache.org/download-70.cgi

Simply uncompress and overwrite openkm tomcat bundle into exiting tomcat folder.

Do not overwritten tomcat openkm bundle with tomcat windows service intaller !!!

Known issue

If you got openoffice or libreoffice configured will get some error when OpenKM try starting as service, to solve it edit your general environment variable PATH and add your tomcat\lib\sigar\ folder, for example like PATH=...;C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 7.0\lib\sigar

Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: org.hyperic.sigar.Sigar.getSigNum(Ljava/lang/String;)I
	at org.hyperic.sigar.Sigar.getSigNum(Native Method)
	at org.hyperic.sigar.Sigar.kill(Sigar.java:275)