Installing Apache Tomcat 8 on Your System

Apache Tomcat is a widely-used web application server that supports Java servlets. If you're planning to run the Solr tutorial, this guide will help you install and configure Tomcat on your system.

Prerequisites

Before starting the installation process, ensure that you have JDK 1.6 installed on your system. This is because Apache Tomcat requires a compatible Java Development Kit to function properly.

Building Solr from Source

If you don't have a binary distribution of Solr, you'll need to build it from source using Ant. To do this, navigate to the source directory and run `ant dist`. This will build the Solr example for your system.

Configuring Tomcat

Once you've built Solr from source, you'll need to configure Tomcat to run on your system. Start by creating a new user account called 'solr' using your operating system's user management utility.

Next, extract the Tomcat 6 download into /opt/tomcat6, which will serve as the base directory for your Tomcat installation. This directory is referred to as `$CATALINA_HOME` throughout this guide.

Editing Configuration Files

To enable the manager login, edit the `tomcat-users.xml` file located in the `$CATALINA_HOME/conf` directory. Add a new user called 'tomcat' with the password 'tomcat' (note that this is an insecure setup and you should use a more secure configuration in production environments).

Copying Files

Copy the log4j.properties file from the resources directory to `$CATALINA_HOME/lib`. You'll also need to copy the JAR files from the Solr lib/ext directory to `$CATALINA_HOME/lib`.

Starting Tomcat

To start Tomcat, navigate to the `$CATALINA_HOME/bin` directory and run `catalina.sh run`. This will start the server on the port defined in your `server.xml` file, which is configured by default to listen on port 8080.

Enabling Automatic Startup

On Linux systems, you can enable Tomcat to start automatically on boot by using chkconfig. Simply add a new entry for 'tomcat6' and set it to start at boot time.

In this guide, we've covered the steps necessary to install and configure Apache Tomcat 8 on your system. By following these instructions, you should be able to get up and running with Solr in no time.

Apache tomcat 8 installer