Apache Tomcat init script (or startup/controll script). Works fine for version 7/8. Read the comments for release history. Feel free to modify, copy and give suggestions. (c) GNU General Public License

Apache Tomcat 8 Start stop script init.d script

#!/bin/bash
#
# description: Apache Tomcat init script
# processname: tomcat  
# chkconfig: 234 20 80  
#
#
# Copyright (C) 2014 Miglen Evlogiev
#
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
# the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
# Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later
# version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
# ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
# FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
# this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
#
# Initially forked from: gist.github.com/valotas/1000094
# Source: gist.github.com/miglen/5590986

 
#Location of JAVA_HOME (bin files)
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/latest
 
#Add Java binary files to PATH
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
 
#CATALINA_HOME is the location of the bin files of Tomcat  
export CATALINA_HOME=/usr/share/tomcat  
 
#CATALINA_BASE is the location of the configuration files of this instance of Tomcat
export CATALINA_BASE=/var/apphome/tomcat-node-1
 
#TOMCAT_USER is the default user of tomcat
export TOMCAT_USER=tomcat
 
#TOMCAT_USAGE is the message if this script is called without any options
TOMCAT_USAGE="Usage: $0 {\e[00;32mstart\e[00m|\e[00;31mstop\e[00m|\e[00;31mkill\e[00m|\e[00;32mstatus\e[00m|\e[00;31mrestart\e[00m}"
 
#SHUTDOWN_WAIT is wait time in seconds for java proccess to stop
SHUTDOWN_WAIT=20
 
tomcat_pid() {
        echo `ps -fe | grep $CATALINA_BASE | grep -v grep | tr -s " "|cut -d" " -f2`
}
 
start() {
  pid=$(tomcat_pid)
  if [ -n "$pid" ]
  then
    echo -e "\e[00;31mTomcat is already running (pid: $pid)\e[00m"
  else
    # Start tomcat
    echo -e "\e[00;32mStarting tomcat\e[00m"
    #ulimit -n 100000
    #umask 007
    #/bin/su -p -s /bin/sh $TOMCAT_USER
        if [ `user_exists $TOMCAT_USER` = "1" ]
        then
                /bin/su $TOMCAT_USER -c $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
        else
                echo -e "\e[00;31mTomcat user $TOMCAT_USER does not exists. Starting with $(id)\e[00m"
                sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
        fi
        status
  fi
  return 0
}
 
status(){
          pid=$(tomcat_pid)
          if [ -n "$pid" ]
            then echo -e "\e[00;32mTomcat is running with pid: $pid\e[00m"
          else
            echo -e "\e[00;31mTomcat is not running\e[00m"
            return 3
          fi
}

terminate() {
	echo -e "\e[00;31mTerminating Tomcat\e[00m"
	kill -9 $(tomcat_pid)
}

stop() {
  pid=$(tomcat_pid)
  if [ -n "$pid" ]
  then
    echo -e "\e[00;31mStoping Tomcat\e[00m"
    #/bin/su -p -s /bin/sh $TOMCAT_USER
        sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
 
    let kwait=$SHUTDOWN_WAIT
    count=0;
    until [ `ps -p $pid | grep -c $pid` = '0' ] || [ $count -gt $kwait ]
    do
      echo -n -e "\n\e[00;31mwaiting for processes to exit\e[00m";
      sleep 1
      let count=$count+1;
    done
 
    if [ $count -gt $kwait ]; then
      echo -n -e "\n\e[00;31mkilling processes didn't stop after $SHUTDOWN_WAIT seconds\e[00m"
      terminate
    fi
  else
    echo -e "\e[00;31mTomcat is not running\e[00m"
  fi
 
  return 0
}
 
user_exists(){
        if id -u $1 >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        echo "1"
        else
                echo "0"
        fi
}
 
case $1 in
	start)
	  start
	;;
	stop)  
	  stop
	;;
	restart)
	  stop
	  start
	;;
	status)
		status
		exit $?  
	;;
	kill)
		terminate
	;;		
	*)
		echo -e $TOMCAT_USAGE
	;;
esac    
exit 0

Hello everyone, sorry I didn't updated this file very soon. Usually when Tomcat doesn't want to stop I terminate the process. Therefore I will update the script to terminate tomcat after 30 seconds, and also some additional commands to generate heap dump.

the following worked for me with out issues.
start() {
pid=$(tomcat_pid)
if [ $pid > 0 ]
then
echo -e "\e[00;31mTomcat is already running (pid: $pid)\e[00m"
else

Start tomcat

echo -e "\e[00;32mStarting tomcat\e[00m"
su - tomcat -c $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
status
fi
return 0
}

Hey I added some RHEL 5,6,7 compadibility to a fork I started, you may want to merge it for us RHEL peeps

source I got the idea from
http://darkmind2007.blogspot.com/2010/06/linux-add-custom-script-to-chkconfig.html

here is the fork with the push commit added already
https://gist.github.com/timothyhutz/207c9b8f8b4ff3f79abd

Hi, you should add chkconfig support to make it perfect

#!/bin/bash
#
# description: Tomcat Start Stop Restart  
# processname: tomcat  
# chkconfig: 234 20 80  

thank you!!!

Under what license can this script be used? It would be great if you could add a license header.

Thanks for this script!

You might consider adding a proper return code on the status command. Something like this:

status function

status(){
          pid=$(tomcat_pid)
          if [ -n "$pid" ]
            then echo -e "\e[00;32mTomcat is running with pid: $pid\e[00m"
          else
            echo -e "\e[00;31mTomcat is not running\e[00m"
            return 3
          fi
}

status reference in case statement

    status)
        status
        exit $?   
    ;;

This came about when trying to use this init script with Chef, it wouldn't start the service because the status command was returning 0. Returning a non-0 value if it's not running allows Chef to pick this up and start the service.

Hello @jboeshart, thank you will do it! :)

Thank you for the script. A couple of notes that worked for me:
-JAVA_HOME doesn't need to be exported if it is already configured.
-CATALINA_BASE should point to CATALINA_HOME if there is only one instance of Tomcat running.
-CATALINA_HOME is the location where the bin folder is and not the bin files, because you call it like this: $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh.(I'm talking about the comment on line 32)

This script does not wait until the server is fully started up and ready to serve, and as such, unsafe.

@mirabilos will fix that and drop you reply! :) 👍

Hi Miglen,

Great script. I also saw that the script does not wait for tomcat to be fully started up.
Could you change this?

Thanks in advance,

Joeri

Nice script! Three minor improvements to make, if you want.

Pass java options in
Define at the top where the properties section the amount of memory and heap to use.

JAVA_OPTS="-server -Xms256m -Xmx256M -XX:MaxPermSize=512m"

The command to start then becomes

/bin/su $TOMCAT_USER -c "$CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh $JAVA_OPTS"

Print Dots instead of a New Line
I don't want screen or logs cluttered with the same information repeated, just preference. This will print
waiting for processes to exit.....................
killing processes didn't stop after 20 seconds

 count=0;
     echo -n -e "\n\e[00;31mwaiting for processes to exit\e[00m";
    until [ `ps -p $pid | grep -c $pid` = '0' ] || [ $count -gt $kwait ]
    do
      echo -n -e ".";
      sleep 1
      let count=$count+1;
    done

Setup Init Info
This will configure the default run level on ubuntu so it will restart automatically when machine starts
update-rc.d tomcat defaults

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:        tomcat7
# Required-Start:  $network
# Required-Stop:   $network
# Default-Start:   2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:    0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start/Stop Tomcat server
### END INIT INFO

I added the following features to my gist here (I don't know how to 'push') https://gist.github.com/arberg/af06bf99a31675e48bf9cb9d5ffe789c

Added wait for start using curl check.
Added max wait duration configuration at top.
Use sudo with keep environment to get JAVA_HOME across instead of su.
Repeated stop if first fails with connection refused.
Ability for jvm flags.

Had some issues with tomcat_pid() matching wrong processes (like tailing tomcat logs). This fixed it for me

https://gist.github.com/rougesheep/2e66e5b7637d3f0b6feba0949d898554

I found this script is very useful in practical. Great Job. Keep it UP!

I added "-l" parameter to line 64 /bin/su -l $TOMCAT_USER -c $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh to load user environment

update tomcat_pid() to work on OS X
tomcat_pid() {
echo ps -fe | grep $CATALINA_BASE | grep -v grep | awk '{ print $2 }'
}

The script does a potential infinite wait on startup. I think the script should fail if tomcat does not start up before a timeout.
For example it happened that I have configured Tomcat on a port different than 8080, set the boot script to run on startup without changing the port in the script and then I got locked out of my server, because chkconfig put Tomcat before even ssh :-(

Suppose Tomcat does not start for a reason someday (e.g. problems with file system, permission, etc), it won't probably open the port and the entire boot sequence may be at jeopardy if the script loops on curling the port

Hey,Thank for your perfect script.
But I have found a bug:
You get the tomcat pid by

echo ps -fe | grep $CATALINA_BASE | grep -v grep | tr -s " "|cut -d" " -f2

But if I have opened a conf file in the $CATALINA_BASE ,the command will return more than one result.

you can change it to

echo ps -ef | grep "org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start" | grep $CATALINA_BASE | grep -v grep | tr -s " "|cut -d" " -f2

Thank you!
(My English is not good,if inappropriate,please understand.)

Hello, Thanks for your script.
One thing i want to check some.
tomcat_pid method
echo ps -fe | grep $CATALINA_BASE | grep -v grep | tr -s " "|cut -d" " -f2

When i stop tomcat, sometimes process shows more then 1. so It cause many pid lists.

So, I recommand tomcat_pid scripts change below
echo ps -fe | grep $CATALINA_BASE | grep -v grep | grep -v stop | tr -s " "|cut -d" " -f2

Thank you!

The tomcat status function should be exit 3 instead of return 3.

return has nothing to do with exit codes required for application/scripts.

thanx for the script!