How to setup Apache Tomcat on OS X?

Question

I'm trying to setup Apache Tomcat 7 for some work. I need to get it done, but I think I've setup things incorrectly. What is the right way? I'm using NetBeans, and have set the install directory for the server in the Netbeans folder under Applications.

Answer 1

Try brew to install custom packages

brew install tomcat

then start it via:

/usr/local/opt/tomcat/bin/catalina start

If using with Netbeans/Eclipse IDEs, you've to set-up to point to CATALINA_HOME which is /usr/local/opt/tomcat/libexec.

Answer 2

I used the Bitnami installer available at https://bitnami.com/stack/tomcat/installer to do this. Let someone else worry about the details, I say.

Bitnami make good installers (and VMs) for a large range of this sort of stuff.

Answer 3

Another option is to go with Pivotal tc Server Developer Edition, which is a free drop-in replacement for Apache Tomcat.

Installing it on OSX straightforward. First, open Terminal then install HomeBrew if you don't have it:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)"

Next, run the following Homebrew command:

brew tap pivotal/tap && brew install tcserver

This will connect to the Pivotal HomeBrew repository, then download and install tc Server. From there you can follow the instructions in the Terminal.

Full disclosure: I work for Pivotal and am part of the tc Server product team, and one of our goals is to make it super easy to get started with tc Server on OSX. Any questions, you can reach me at @alsargent on Twitter.

Answer 4

Are you looking for something like MAMP (analogous to the LAMP stack)?

http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html