Trouble running tomcat on Ubuntu Linux.

[Unnsse Khan]

Hello there,

Having trouble running tomcat on Ubuntu Linux 7.0.4.

I installed tomcat under:

/home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25

Created the CATALINA_HOME system environmental variable inside my .profile directory.

When I try to run TOMCAT, this is what I get:

$ sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
Cannot find /home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/bin/catalina.sh
This file is needed to run this program

This file (catalina.sh) is obviously located in the right directory...

When I try to run this file, this is what I get:

$ sh /home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/bin/catalina.sh
The BASEDIR environment variable is not defined correctly
This environment variable is needed to run this program

My CLASSPATH is set as:

$ echo $CLASSPATH
.:/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/lib/tools.jar:/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/jre/lib/rt.jar:/home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/common/lib/servlet-api.jar:/home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/common/lib/jsp-api.jar
 

What am I possibly doing wrong?

Happy programming,

Unnsse

[Jesper de Jong]

Look inside the file /home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/bin/catalina.sh and find out what it is doing with the BASEDIR variable.

Is CATALINA_HOME set correctly? What do you get if you type:

echo $CATALINA_HOME

[Ben Souther]

A quick way to rule out any typos in your environment variable is to use either the cd or ls command:

ls $CATALINA_HOME
cd $CATALINA_HOME

If neither of those work, you know you've got it wrong.

Also, unless you're trying to run more than one instance of Tomcat from the same codebase, there is no need to explicitly set the CATALINA_HOME environment variable. You only need to set JAVA_HOME or JRE_HOME.
startup.sh will set the CATALINA_HOME variable for you.

[Unnsse Khan]

Jesper & Ben,

Thanks for the responses!

There are not any typos...

echo $CATALINA_HOME
/Users/untz/DevTools/Java/Tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25

Or:

cd $CATALINA_HOME/bin
/DevTools/Java/Tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/bin untz$

Now, I thought it was a permissions things so inside the bin directory, I conducted a chmod + x *.sh:

/DevTools/Java/Tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/bin untz$ ls -al *.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 untz  untz  12044 Aug 24 17:34 catalina.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 untz  untz    841 Aug 24 17:34 digest.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 untz  untz   3059 Oct  8 16:08 setclasspath.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 untz  untz    780 Aug 24 17:34 shutdown.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 untz  untz   1173 Aug 24 17:34 startup.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 untz  untz   2545 Aug 24 17:34 tool-wrapper.sh
-rwxr-xr-x   1 untz  untz    784 Aug 24 17:34 version.sh

When I try to run Tomcat, this is what I get:

sh startup.sh
The BASEDIR environment variable is not defined correctly
This environment variable is needed to run this program

Contents of startup.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Start Script for the CATALINA Server
#
# $Id: startup.sh 385888 2006-03-14 21:04:40Z keith $
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
# Better OS/400 detection: see Bugzilla 31132
os400=false
darwin=false
case "`uname`" in
CYGWIN*) cygwin=true;;
OS400*) os400=true;;
Darwin*) darwin=true;;
esac
 
# resolve links - $0 may be a softlink
PRG="$0"
 
while [ -h "$PRG" ] ; do
  ls=`ls -ld "$PRG"`
  link=`expr "$ls" : '.*-> \(.*\)$'`
  if expr "$link" : '/.*' > /dev/null; then
    PRG="$link"
  else
    PRG=`dirname "$PRG"`/"$link"
  fi
done
 
PRGDIR=`dirname "$PRG"`
EXECUTABLE=catalina.sh
 
# Check that target executable exists
if $os400; then
  # -x will Only work on the os400 if the files are: 
  # 1. owned by the user
  # 2. owned by the PRIMARY group of the user
  # this will not work if the user belongs in secondary groups
  eval
else
  if [ ! -x "$PRGDIR"/"$EXECUTABLE" ]; then
    echo "Cannot find $PRGDIR/$EXECUTABLE"
    echo "This file is needed to run this program"
    exit 1
  fi
fi 
 
exec "$PRGDIR"/"$EXECUTABLE" start "$@"

Contents of setclasspath.sh:

 
#!/bin/sh
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
#  Set CLASSPATH and Java options
#
#  $Id: setclasspath.sh 345508 2005-11-18 15:54:56Z yoavs $
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
# First clear out the user classpath
CLASSPATH=
# Make sure prerequisite environment variables are set
if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" -a -z "$JRE_HOME" ]; then
  # Bugzilla 37284
  if $darwin && [ -d "/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5/Home" ]; then
    export JAVA_HOME="/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5/Home"
  else
    echo "Neither the JAVA_HOME nor the JRE_HOME environment variable is defined"
    echo "At least one of these environment variable is needed to run this program"
    exit 1
  fi
fi
if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" -a "$1" = "debug" ]; then
  echo "JAVA_HOME should point to a JDK in order to run in debug mode."
  exit 1
fi
if [ -z "$JRE_HOME" ]; then
  JRE_HOME="$JAVA_HOME"
fi
 
# If we're running under jdb, we need a full jdk.
if [ "$1" = "debug" -o "$1" = "javac" ] ; then
  if [ "$os400" = "true" ]; then
    if [ ! -x "$JAVA_HOME"/bin/java -o ! -x "$JAVA_HOME"/bin/javac ]; then
      echo "The JAVA_HOME environment variable is not defined correctly"
      echo "This environment variable is needed to run this program"
      echo "NB: JAVA_HOME should point to a JDK not a JRE"
      exit 1
    fi
  else
    if [ ! -x "$JAVA_HOME"/bin/java -o ! -x "$JAVA_HOME"/bin/jdb -o ! -x "$JAVA_HOME"/bin/javac ]; then
      echo "The JAVA_HOME environment variable is not defined correctly"
      echo "This environment variable is needed to run this program"
      echo "NB: JAVA_HOME should point to a JDK not a JRE"
      exit 1
    fi
  fi
fi
if [ -z "$BASEDIR" ]; then
  echo "The BASEDIR environment variable is not defined"
  echo "This environment variable is needed to run this program"
  exit 1
fi
if [ ! -x "$BASEDIR"/bin/setclasspath.sh ]; then
  if $os400; then
    # -x will Only work on the os400 if the files are:
    # 1. owned by the user
    # 2. owned by the PRIMARY group of the user
    # this will not work if the user belongs in secondary groups
    eval
  else
    echo "The BASEDIR environment variable is not defined correctly"
    echo "This environment variable is needed to run this program"
    exit 1
  fi
fi
 
# Set the default -Djava.endorsed.dirs argument
JAVA_ENDORSED_DIRS="$BASEDIR"/common/endorsed
 
# Set standard CLASSPATH
if [ "$1" = "debug" -o "$1" = "javac" ] ; then
  CLASSPATH="$JAVA_HOME"/lib/tools.jar
fi
 
# OSX hack to CLASSPATH
JIKESPATH=
if [ `uname -s` = "Darwin" ]; then
  OSXHACK="/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/CurrentJDK/Classes"
  if [ -d "$OSXHACK" ]; then
    for i in "$OSXHACK"/*.jar; do
      JIKESPATH="$JIKESPATH":"$i"
    done
  fi
fi
 
# Set standard commands for invoking Java.
  _RUNJAVA="$JRE_HOME"/bin/java
if [ "$os400" != "true" ]; then
  _RUNJDB="$JAVA_HOME"/bin/jdb
fi
_RUNJAVAC="$JAVA_HOME"/bin/javac

I am getting the BASEDIR problem in both OS X Tiger and Ubuntu 7.0.4...

When I googled, this problem, it seems as if a bunch of people were experiencing this but there was no solutions?!

See the search results (from Google) here.

This is really frustrating!

In the past five years, I've never experienced a problem that seems so simple to solve but something that just comes out of the box (when one downloads and unzips Tomcat from http://tomcat.apache.org)!?

With thanks,

Unnsse

[Tualha Khan]

What does the following command print on the console?

env

rgds,
tualha

[Unnsse Khan]

I actually got it working...

What it was is that after you set the system environmental variable, you are supposed to start tomcat by manually issuing the entire path, instead of issuing it from $CATALINA_HOME.

So, for example, if $CATALINA_HOME is set to /usr/local/tomcat/

instead of trying to run it from the command line by issuing:

sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh

One should do it manually:

cd /usr/local/tomcat
/usr/local/tomcat $ sh startup.sh

And wa la! You'll see:

Using CATALINA_BASE: /usr/local/tomcat/
Using CATALINA_HOME: /usr/local/tomcat/
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /usr/local/tomcat/
Using JRE_HOME:
/System/Library/frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Home

After doing this once, $CATALINA_HOME works...

Got it working in both Linux and OS X...

Cheers,

Unnsse
[ October 12, 2007: Message edited by: Unnsse Khan ]

[Noms Dom]

do chmod +x catalina.sh
chmod +x startup.sh
and same for all .sh files in the tomcat bin dir it will work

[Thilina Buddhika]

chmod +x *.sh will do the trick.

[See Furst]

Unnsse Khan wrote:Hello there,

Having trouble running tomcat on Ubuntu Linux 7.0.4.

I installed tomcat under:

/home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25

Created the CATALINA_HOME system environmental variable inside my .profile directory.

When I try to run TOMCAT, this is what I get:

$ sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
Cannot find /home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/bin/catalina.sh
This file is needed to run this program

This file (catalina.sh) is obviously located in the right directory...

When I try to run this file, this is what I get:

$ sh /home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/bin/catalina.sh
The BASEDIR environment variable is not defined correctly
This environment variable is needed to run this program

My CLASSPATH is set as:

$ echo $CLASSPATH
.:/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/lib/tools.jar:/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/jre/lib/rt.jar:/home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/common/lib/servlet-api.jar:/home/untz/DevTools/Java/tomcat/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/common/lib/jsp-api.jar
 

What am I possibly doing wrong?

Happy programming,

Unnsse

Hehe I get this:

dirname: illegal option -- b
usage: dirname path

something in the path is wonky.. but the server seems to start fine.

[Tim Holloway]

https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/DontWakeTheZombies

You are going to confuse everyone. Whatever the original problem was in this thread, it was long enough ago that your problem is not likely to be the same thing.

We do not charge extra for starting your own message thread. In fact, we encourage it!