Yum install tomcat on Linux

This tutorial shows how to perform a Tomcat 7 installation using the yum installation utility.
The pre-requisite for installing Tomcat is that you have a JDK on your machine, if you haven't got one, you can install it by executing as root user:
[root@localhost ~]#  yum install java
Next you can start installing Tomcat. There are at least two ways for installing it:

Installation option 1:

Move to http://tomcat.apache.org/ and download the latest stable release of Tomcat. Once done, unzip it to a folder where you have writing permissions:
[tomcat@localhost ~] $ unzip apache-tomcat-7.0.53.zip

Once installed, you can start Tomcat by executing from the TOMCAT_HOME/bin folder:
[tomcat@localhost ~] $ startup.sh

Installation option 2:

You can use the yum utility for installing Tomcat. At the time of writing, just Tomcat 6 is available on the yum repository. You can install it by running:

[root@localhost ~]# yum install tomcat6 tomcat6-webapps tomcat6-admin-webapps

The tomcat6-webapps is not mandatory as it contains some sample applications. The tomcat6-admin-webapps should be installed as it contains the administration application which is deployed as a web application. 

Once installed, you can include it as a service which starts at boot and start it:

[root@localhost ~]#  chkconfig tomcat6 on

[root@localhost ~]#  service tomcat6 start

Checking that Tomcat is running

The simplest way to check that Tomcat is running is by surfing to the address http://localhost:8080 which should show the welcome page:

If you are going to check it by shell, you can use the following methods to check that Tomcat is running:

[tomcat@localhost ~] service tomcat6 status

tomcat6 (pid 4470) is running...                           [  OK  ]

[tomcat@localhost ~] netstat -nlp | grep 8080

tcp        0      0 :::8080                     :::*                        LISTEN      4470/java           

[tomcat@localhost ~] ps -ef | grep tomcat

tomcat   1937     1  1 11:04 ?        00:00:08 /usr/lib/jvm/jre/bin/java

                                                       . . . . . . .

Where has yum installed Tomcat ?

If you have used yum to install Tomcat, the following defaults have been user for Tomcat installation:
Tomcat Service Config: /etc/tomcat6 (main config directory)
Release Notes        : /usr/share/doc/tomcat*
Bin Directory        : /usr/share/tomcat6
Webapps              : /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps
Logs                 : /var/log/tomcat6