Startup Script for Apache Tomcat on Snow Leopard HOWTO

I have just set up Apache Tomcat startup script on Snow Leopard and I thought I’d blog about it while it’s still fresh in my head.? Assuming you have installed Tomcat in /usr/local/tomcat directory, you can do the following to start Tomcat on system startup.

1. Create your startup script:

sudo nano /usr/local/tomcat/bin/tomcat

#!/bin/sh # Tomcat Startup Script
CATALINA_HOME=/usr/local/tomcat; export CATALINA_HOME
JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home; export JAVA_HOME
TOMCAT_OWNER=root; export TOMCAT_OWNER

start() {
	echo -n "Starting Tomcat: "
	su $TOMCAT_OWNER -c $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
	sleep 2
}

stop() {
	echo -n "Stopping Tomcat: "
	su $TOMCAT_OWNER -c $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
}

# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
	start)
	start
;;
	stop)
	stop
;;
	restart)
	stop
	start
;;
*)

echo $"Usage: tomcat {start|stop|restart}"
exit
esac

[quote type=”pull” style=”2″ align=”left” width=”60%”]Set your TOMCAT_OWNER correctly.? You should run it as a valid system user.[/quote]
[divider]

2. Create a symbolic link in /usr/bin for easier access

sudo ln -s /usr/local/tomcat/bin/tomcat /usr/bin/tomcat

3. Create the startup daemon which will start Tomcat when the system boots up

sudo mkdir /Library/StartupItems/tomcat

sudo nano /Library/StartupItems/tomcat/tomcat

#!/bin/sh
. /etc/rc.common

# The start subroutine
StartService() {
# Insert your start command below.
tomcat start
}

# The stop subroutine
StopService() {
# Insert your stop command(s) below.
tomcat stop
}

# The restart subroutine
RestartService() {
# Insert your start command below.
tomcat restart
}

RunService "$1"

4. Create your startup parameters plist file

sudo nano /Library/StartupItems/tomcat/StartupParameters.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist SYSTEM "file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/PropertyList.dtd">
 <plist version="0.9">
 <dict>
 <key>Description</key>
 <string>Tomcat web server</string>
 <key>OrderPreference</key>
 <string>Late</string>
 <key>Provides</key>
 <array>
 <string>Local Web Services</string>
 </array>
 <key>Uses</key>
 <array>
 <string>SystemLog</string>
 </array>
 </dict>
 </plist>

Restart your Mac and you should be sweet.

Marko