Breif notes for those that need to install Tomcat as a stand alone webserver - hopefully it'll help someone avoid the pitfalls(!) This is specific to the configuration I've followed - though I have tried this with RH9 and SuSE8.1 and it works fine. Note - I did not have apache (or any other web server installed; this is purely a Tomcat web server install)

1. Aquire a copy of the java SDK from:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html
I used the 1.4 SDK binary. Download j2sdk-1_4_1_03-linux-i586.bin from the site and save in your chosen install directory - I used /usr/local/.
2. chmod 755 j2sdk-1_4_1_03-linux-i586.bin and execute the file. There's a huge disclamer from sun - tab through, accept, and let the SDK install. It will install to /usr/local/j2sdk1.4.1_03.
3. Create an env variable JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/j2sdk1.4.1_03 (or whatever direcotry the SDK is installed to).
4. export JAVA_HOME
5. Download the tomcat binary from http://jakarta.apache.org/site/binindex.cgi
I chose Tomcat 4.1.24 which is the most recent at time of writing from ./bin/jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24-LE-jdk14.tar.gz - choose the LE version (light version) for java 1.4.X. Download, again, to /usr/local
6. gunzip jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24-LE-jdk14.tar.gz
7. tar -xvf jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24-LE-jdk14.tar
8. cd /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24-LE-jdk14/bin
9. ./startup.sh
10. From a web browser, http://localhost:8080 to view the default tomcat page.

To configure with apache, see a quick guide at http://www.johnturner.com/howto/rh72-howto.html

Or this page... this is the instruction set I use to set up mod_jk2

http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tom...jk2/index.html

check the config examples and Apache / IIS howto's. Very worthwhile reading to save yourself the headaches.

B.

If, as I am, you are running tomcat as your only webserver on a box, you can redirect all port 80 traffic to the tomcat port 8080 via iptables. Three additions to iptables:

iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -d localhost -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080
iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -d xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -d xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8080

...where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the box (Substitute DNS here if required).

Thanks to Holger Klawitter's site (http://www.klawitter.de/tomcat80.html) for this info.

Dave

Or you can configure tomcat to listen on port 80...

${TOMCAT_HOME}/conf/server.xml (assuming 4.x)

<Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector"
port="8080" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75"
enableLookups="true" redirectPort="8443"
acceptCount="100" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000"
useURIValidationHack="false" disableUploadTimeout="true" />

just change it to 80. Then you don't have to deal with iptables rules at all.

B.

Is there not a security issue with that, as tomcat runs as root?

yes, I hadn't considered that... I guess user switching and chroot'ing would be kind of a PITA compared to just using iptables.

Apologies, that was bad advice.

B.

I know - I use this method for development, where there's no security concerns... far simpler!

Dave