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Running Tomcat on

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Mac OS X

For an updated guide for installing Tomcat 5/6 on Mac OS X 10.6 using MacPorts check http://serverfault.com/questions/183496/full-guide-for-installing-tomcat-on-os-x

\[See below for later updates to this 2004 posting\]

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(3) Fix the Unix file permissions

• Download the freeware BatChmod, a GUI wrapper around the Unix "chmod" command.

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• Drag and drop the entire Tomcat folder onto the BatChmod icon.

• Check *all* the checkboxes.

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• Add a rule to do port-forwarding from port 80 to Tomcat's default port 8080. Type this in the Terminal:

  No Format
  sudo ipfw add 100 fwd 127.0.0.1,8080 tcp from any to any 80 in

  Or use this nifty program, another GUI wrapper around the ipfw command line, Simple Port Forwarder: http://www.4dresources.com/files/

The Sharing SysPref will get cranky when you add an ipfw rule behind its back; it disables its user interface. To use the Sharing SysPref again you'll have to clear that rule, the one we added and numbered 100. To delete a rule, either read the ipfw man page, or use Simple Port Forwarder again. Quit the System Preferences program, and re-launch it to re-enable its Firewall panel.

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To have Tomcat 6.0.x launch on boot on Mac OS X 10.5.x, you need to add a LaunchDaemon. Create a file called org.apache.tomcat.plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ with the following content:

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Inside this, create two files - Tomcat (script) and StartupParameters.plist. Again, make them writable only by root, and the script executable by everyone.

Contents of StartupParameters.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Description</key>
	<string>Tomcat Server</string>
	<key>OrderPreference</key>
	<string>Late</string>
	<key>Provides</key>
	<array>
		<string>Tomcat</string>
	</array>
	</dict>
</plist>

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#!/bin/sh
#
# /Library/StartupItems/Tomcat/Tomcat
#
# A script to automatically start up Tomcat on system bootup
# for Mac OS X. This is actually just a wrapper script around
# the standard catalina.sh script, which is included in
# the distribution.
#

# Suppress the annoying "$1: unbound variable" error when no option
# was given
if [ -z $1 ] ; then
	echo "Usage: $0 [start|stop|restart] "
	exit 1
fi

# Source the common setup functions for startup scripts
test -r /etc/rc.common || exit 1
. /etc/rc.common

# The path to the catalina.sh script. 
# The currently used version is in /Library/Tomcat/Home/bin
SCRIPT="/Library/Tomcat/Home/bin/catalina.sh"

# file to hold the process ID on start so it can be killed by stop.
export CATALINA_PID="/Library/Tomcat/Home/server.pid"

StartService ()
{
	if [ "${TOMCAT:=-NO-}" = "-YES-" ] ; then
		ConsoleMessage "Starting Tomcat server"
		$SCRIPT start > /dev/null 2>&1
	fi
}

StopService ()
{
	ConsoleMessage "Stopping Tomcat server"
	$SCRIPT stop -force > /dev/null 2>&1
}

RestartService ()
{
	ConsoleMessage "Restarting Tomcat server"
	StopService
	StartService
}

if test -x $SCRIPT ; then
	RunService "$1"
else
	ConsoleMessage "Could not find Tomcat control script!"
fi

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