This tutorial is based on CentOS 7.0 server, so you should set up a basic CentOS 7.0 server installation before you continue with this tutorial. The system should have a static IP address. I use 192.168.0.100 as my IP address in this tutorial and server1.example.com as the hostname.
To start the installation of Tomcat we need to first install java-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64, we will install it as follows:

 

1	yum install java-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64

Check the version of java as follows:

 

[root@server1 ~]# java -version java version "1.7.0_65" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (rhel-2.5.1.2.el7_0-x86_64 u65-b17) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.65-b04, mixed mode) [root@server1 ~]#

Proceeding further we need some essential packages. CentOS don’t come with ifconfig command, so we will install net-tools and other packages as follows:

 

1	yum install net-tools unzip wget

Now we will download the latest Tomcat version from its home page and install it as:

 

cd /opt wget http://ftp.nluug.nl/internet/apache/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.0.9/bin/apache-tomcat-8.0.9.zip unzip apache-tomcat-8.0.9.zip mv apache-tomcat-8.0.9 tomcat

Unzip it and set the environment variables by creating a file script.sh in /etc/profile.d/ as:

Give the entries as follows:

 

#!/bin/bash CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat PATH=$CATALINA_HOME/bin:$PATH export PATH CATALINA_HOME export CLASSPATH=.

Now we will give execute permissions to the file:

 

1	chmod +x /etc/profile.d/script.sh

Further we will make the environment variables permanent as by running:

 

1	source /etc/profile.d/script.sh

Again before starting Tomcat service, we will provide executable permissions to following files:

 

chmod +x $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh chmod +x $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh chmod +x $CATALINA_HOME/bin/catalina.sh

Now we need to start Tomcat service by using:

 

$CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh [root@server1 ~]# $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh Using CATALINA_BASE:   /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_HOME:   /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/temp Using JRE_HOME:        /usr Using CLASSPATH:       /opt/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/bin/tomcat-juli.jar Tomcat started. [root@server1 ~]#

It will start the Tomcat server, we can also check by using:

 

netstat -an | grep 8080 [root@server1 ~]# netstat -an | grep 8080 tcp6       0      0 :::8080                 :::*                    LISTEN     [root@server1 ~]#

In CentOS 7.0 we have different policy for the firewall-cmd, we will override it by using:

 

firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8080/tcp --permanent firewall-cmd --reload

Finally we need to create user accounts to secure and access admin/manager pages. Edit conf/tomcat-users.xml file in your editor and paste inside tags

 

1	vi  $CATALINA_HOME/conf/tomcat-users.xml

 

< role rolename="manager-gui"/> < role rolename="manager-script"/> < role rolename="manager-jmx"/> < role rolename="manager-status"/> < role rolename="admin-gui"/> < role rolename="admin-script"/> < user username="admin" password="admin" roles="manager-gui,manager-script,manager-jmx,manager-status,admin-gui,admin-script"/>

In above configuration I have used username=admin and password=admin, you can make the changes as per your choice. Then we need to stop/start the Tomcat service:

 

cd $CATALINA_HOME ./bin/catalina.sh stop [root@server1 tomcat]# ./bin/catalina.sh stop Using CATALINA_BASE:   /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_HOME:   /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/temp Using JRE_HOME:        /usr Using CLASSPATH:       /opt/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/bin/tomcat-juli.jar [root@server1 tomcat]#

Then start the service:

 

./bin/catalina.sh start [root@server1 tomcat]# ./bin/catalina.sh start Using CATALINA_BASE:   /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_HOME:   /opt/tomcat Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/tomcat/temp Using JRE_HOME:        /usr Using CLASSPATH:       /opt/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/tomcat/bin/tomcat-juli.jar Tomcat started. [root@server1 tomcat]#

Now access the page for login at http://192.68.0.100:8080
Your login password for the administrative right are as username=admin and password=admin. Click on Manager App.
Congratulations we have a working Tomcat Server installed in CentOS 7.0.