How to install Tomcat 7 on Ubuntu with APT-GET

This tutorial shows you how to install Tomcat on Ubuntu, with help of the buith-in apt-get command.

1. apt-get install

1.1 Find an available Tomcat package to install

$ sudo apt-cache search tomcat
//...
tomcat7 - Servlet and JSP engine
tomcat7-admin - Servlet and JSP engine -- admin web applications
tomcat7-common - Servlet and JSP engine -- common files
tomcat7-docs - Servlet and JSP engine -- documentation
tomcat7-examples - Servlet and JSP engine -- example web applications

Updated on Ubuntu 20.04

$ sudo apt-cache search tomcat
[sudo] password for tvt: 
resource-agents - Cluster Resource Agents
libapache-mod-jk-doc - Documentation of libapache2-mod-jk package
libapache2-mod-jk - Apache 2 connector for the Tomcat Java servlet engine
libjnlp-servlet-java - simple and convenient packaging format for JNLP applications
liblogback-java - flexible logging library for Java
liblogback-java-doc - flexible logging library for Java - documentation
libnetty-tcnative-java - Tomcat native fork for Netty
libnetty-tcnative-jni - Tomcat native fork for Netty (JNI library)
libsolr-java - Enterprise search server based on Lucene - Java libraries
libspring-instrument-java - modular Java/J2EE application framework - Instrumentation
libtcnative-1 - Tomcat native library using the Apache Portable Runtime
libtomcat9-embed-java - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine -- embed libraries
libtomcat9-java - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine -- core libraries
libtomcatjss-java - JSSE implementation using JSS for Tomcat
nagios-plugins-contrib - Plugins for nagios compatible monitoring systems
python3-ajpy - Python module to craft AJP requests
solr-common - Enterprise search server based on Lucene3 - common files
solr-jetty - Enterprise search server based on Lucene3 - Jetty integration
solr-tomcat - Enterprise search server based on Lucene3 - Tomcat integration
tomcat9 - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine
tomcat9-admin - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine -- admin web applications
tomcat9-common - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine -- common files
tomcat9-docs - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine -- documentation
tomcat9-examples - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine -- example web applications
tomcat9-user - Apache Tomcat 9 - Servlet and JSP engine -- tools to create user instances
yasat - simple stupid audit tool

1.2 Install the following Tomcat packages :

$ sudo apt-get install tomcat7
$ sudo apt-get install tomcat7-admin

Updated on Ubuntu 20.04, if we use apt so now we can install Tomcat 9 instead of Tomcat 7:

$ sudo apt-get install tomcat9
$ sudo apt-get install tomcat9-admin

1.3 Done. Tomcat is installed and configured automatically.

2. Where is Tomcat installed?

2.1 Tomcat auto start script is created in /etc/init.d/ folder.

$ sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat7 start
$ sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat7 stop
$ sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat7 restart

2.2 Tomcat bin folder is created in /usr/share/tomcat7.

$ ls -lsa /usr/share/tomcat7/

 4 drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  4096 Mac  11 23:21 .
12 drwxr-xr-x 282 root root 12288 Mac  11 23:21 ..
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Mac  11 23:21 bin
 4 -rw-r--r--   1 root root    39 Jul  31  2013 defaults.md5sum
 4 -rw-r--r--   1 root root  2030 Jul  31  2013 defaults.template
 4 drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Mac  11 23:21 lib
 4 -rw-r--r--   1 root root    53 Jul  31  2013 logrotate.md5sum
 4 -rw-r--r--   1 root root   118 Jul  31  2013 logrotate.template

2.3 Tomcat conf and logs folders are created in /var/lib/tomcat7.

$ ls -lsa /var/lib/tomcat7/

4 drwxr-xr-x  6 root    root    4096 Mac  11 23:21 .
4 drwxr-xr-x 64 root    root    4096 Mac  11 23:21 ..
4 drwxr-xr-x  3 tomcat7 tomcat7 4096 Mac  11 23:21 common
0 lrwxrwxrwx  1 root    root      12 Mac   5 01:20 conf -> /etc/tomcat7
0 lrwxrwxrwx  1 root    root      17 Mac   5 01:20 logs -> ../../log/tomcat7
4 drwxr-xr-x  3 tomcat7 tomcat7 4096 Mac  11 23:21 server
4 drwxr-xr-x  3 tomcat7 tomcat7 4096 Mac  11 23:21 shared
4 drwxrwxr-x  3 tomcat7 tomcat7 4096 Mac  11 23:21 webapps
0 lrwxrwxrwx  1 root    root      19 Mac   5 01:20 work -> ../../cache/tomcat7

3. Remove Tomcat installation

Follow this on the command line

sudo apt remove --purge tomcat7 tomcat7-admin tomcat7-docs
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt autoclean

Use the above to purge any app from your system including config files.

Once this is complete you can use something like find or locate to remove any remaining stragglers.

sudo apt install locate && sudo updatedb
locate tomcat

And you can manually delete anything that might remain.

After removing the packages, you need to remove the tomcat directories too:

# rm –rf /usr/share/tomcat7

References

1. Tomcat Setup
2. Apache Tomcat
3. Remove Tomcat from Linux | Uninstall Tomcat Ubuntu