Starting tomcat6 shows missing conf directory.

Question

I've just installed Tomcat6 via apt-get on lucid.

Looking at the directory created here: /usr/share/tomcat6

I was expecting a conf directory to be created under this (based on experiences elsewhere). Instead there was a skel directory created. Under this there was the directories bin and conf.

Do I need to patch up the installation by creating a hard link of a conf directory inside tomcat6 that points to .../tomcat6/skel/conf - or is there something better?

PS - Why do I need to to this? Why doesn't it work out the box?

Answer 1

/usr/share generally contains read-only data. You're likely looking for the /var/lib/tomcat6/ directory which contains both the conf and logs directories.

skel is the abbreviation of "skeleton" which means it should be copied somewhere.

According to the Ubuntu manual on tomcat, you should create an instance with:

tomcat6-create-instance tomcat-instance

This will create a directory named "tomcat-instance" containing some subdirectories like conf. To start it, run:

tomcat-instance/bin/startup.sh

For more information and other links, please refer to the Ubuntu manual.