apt-get install tomcat5 tomcat5-admin tomcat5-webapps webxml

cd /usr/local
sudo tar xvfz ~/Desktop/apache-tomcat-5.5.20.tar.gz
sudo tar tvfz ~/Desktop/apache-tomcat-5.5.20-admin.tar.gz
sudo rm tomcat
sudo ln -s /usr/local/apache-tomcat-5.5.12 tomcat
rm /usr/local/html/tomcat
ln -s /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/tomcat-docs /usr/local/html/tomcat
sudo chown -R jgaspar.jgaspar tomcat/
vi $CATALINA_HOME/conf/tomcat-users.xml

<user name="jgaspar" password="secret" roles="standard,manager" />

vi ~/.bashrc

#TOMCAT setup...
alias tomcat.rc='export CATALINA_HOME=/usr/local/tomcat; PATH=${CATALINA_HOME}/bin:${PATH}; alias tomcat-startup=${CATALINA_HOME}/bin/startup.sh; alias tomcat-shutdown=${CATALINA_HOME}/bin/shutdown.sh; echo "start tomcat with tomcat-startup."'

Run as a daemon:

sudo groupadd tomcat
sudo useradd -d /usr/local/tomcat -g tomcat -m tomcat
# create launch script /etc/init.d/tomcat, see /etc/init.d/skeleton (daemon must be running with user tomcat)
cd /etc/init.d
sudo update-rc.d tomcat defaults 30 

— Jose Gaspar 2006/10/20 21:19