How to run multiple Tomcat instances on single Linux server?

If you are a developer then you will find yourself in a situation where you have to run multiple instances of Tomcat server on a single machine. The information available on the internet may not be precise and hence I have listed down the step-by-step guide to achieve it.

The configuration used for the illustration is Linux CentOS-6.X server.

• Step 1:
  Download Tomcat from http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi
• Step 2:
  Extract it into two different folders, let’s say /opt/tomcat1 and /opt/tomcat2
• Step 3:
  Keep tomcat1 instance as is and change following things in tomcat2 instance
  Edit /opt/tomcat2/conf/server.xml and change port number

  <server port="8105" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">
.....
<Connector port="8181" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="8443" />
.....
<Connector port="8109" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" />

• Step 4:
  Create following two scripts to run Tomcat as a service
  1. Create /etc/init.d/tomcat1 with following instructions
     
     #!/bin/bash
     # description: Tomcat Start Stop Restart
     # processname: tomcat
     # chkconfig: 234 20 80
     JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jre-openjdk
     export JAVA_HOME
     PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
     export PATH
     CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat1

     case $1 in
     start)
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
     ;;
     stop)
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
     ;;
     restart)
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
     ;;
     esac
     exit 0
     

  2. Create /etc/init.d/tomcat2 with following instructions
     
     #!/bin/bash
     # description: Tomcat Start Stop Restart
     # processname: tomcat
     # chkconfig: 234 20 80
     JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jre-openjdk
     export JAVA_HOME
     PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
     export PATH
     CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat2

     case $1 in
     start)
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
     ;;
     stop)
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
     ;;
     restart)
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
     sh $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
     ;;
     esac
     exit 0
     

• Step 5:
  Start/Stop Tomcat service

  Service tomcat1 start/stop/restart
Service tomcat2 start/stop/restart

• Step 6:
  Add Tomcat service in startup

  chkconfig tomcat1 on
chkconfig tomcat2 on

This will enable you to use two instances of Tomcat on a single machine.

Note: Please open relevant port numbers in server firewall.