BuildForge Help

Apache Tomcat Installation and Configuration

Use this procedure to download, install, and configure Apache Tomcat for use with the Management Console on UNIX and Linux.

The Tomcat servlet/JSP container is required in order to run reports and to support the service layer Java and Perl APIs. This section includes instructions for you to perform the following steps:

Install J2SE 5

J2SE 5 is a prerequisite for running Apache Tomcat.

To install J2SE 5:

  1. Download J2SE 5. You can get J2SE 5 from IBM or from Sun.
  2. Install J2SE 5. Follow the provider's instructions to install on your platform.
Note: $JAVA_HOME must point to this installation and be available in the environment used to start Apache Tomcat.

Download Tomcat

To download the Tomcat binaries:

  1. Download version 5.5.9 of the Tomcat binaries to the intended Build Forge host. Do the following as a non-root user.
    1. Make a temporary working directory where you want Tomcat to be installed, such as /usr/local.
    2. In a browser, go to http://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-5/archive/v5.5.9/bin/
    3. Download and verify the jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9.tar.gz and jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9.tar.gz.md5
    4. Verify the download using the md5 file.
  2. Extract the image.
    $ gunzip -c jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9.tar.gz | tar xvf -

    Note that tar is set to use stdin for the pipe (using the - parameter)

  3. Go to the newly created working directory
    $ cd /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9

Install JDBC Drivers

Download and unzip the JDBC driver for your database. The download may contain many files and subdirectories. Locate the jar file for the JDBC driver and copy the jar file only to $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib.

$CATALINA_HOME is the Tomcat installation root and must be set as an environment variable. See the installation documentation for your JDBC driver for instructions.

Configure Tomcat for Build Forge

  1. Create a reports directory in the Tomcat root directory. It must be writable by the user that Tomcat runs as.
    $ cd $CATALINA_HOME
    $ mkdir reports
  2. Copy buildforge.conf from the Build Forge directory to the Tomcat root directory. This example uses /usr/local/buildforge/Platform.
    $ cd /usr/local/buildforge/Platform
    $ cp buildforge.conf $CATALINA_HOME 
  3. Copy the .war files for the reporting application and the services-layer APIs for Java and Perl.
    $ cd /usr/local/buildforge/tomcat/webapps
    $ cp quickReport.war $CATALINA_HOME/webapps
    $ cp rbf-services.war $CATALINA_HOME/webapps
    
  4. Copy icu4j-3_6.jar from the Build Forge lib directory to the Tomcat lib directory.
    $ cd /usr/local/build/tomcat/common/lib
    $ cp icu4j-3_6.jar $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib
  5. Set maximum memory to 1GB or more. Running reports requires 1GB (1024MB) heap size for the JVM. Set JAVA_OPTS to include the -Xmx (maximum heap size) setting. If you get Out of Memory errors while running reports (possible on large reports), increase this setting. That may in turn require you to add memory to the host.
    JAVA_OPTS -Xmx1024M
  6. Start Tomcat
    $ $CATALINA_HOME/bin/catalina.sh start