Apache Tomcat cannot be started as a non-root user

Question

I manually started Apache Tomcat 6 via the command $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh and this is the result -

Using CATALINA_BASE: /home/getx/Desktop/apache-tomcat-6.0.37
Using CATALINA_HOME: /home/getx/Desktop/apache-tomcat-6.0.37
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /home/getx/Desktop/apache-tomcat-6.0.37/temp
Using JRE_HOME: /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java
Using CLASSPATH: /home/getx/Desktop/apache-tomcat-6.0.37/bin/bootstrap.jar

However, when I enter localhost:8080 in Firefox, nothing shows up.

It works when I run the command via sudo .

So I guessed it must be due to a permissions problem.

These are my permissions for my current user -

drwxr-xr-x 2 getx getx 4096 Jan 18 12:50 bin 
drwxr-xr-x 3 getx getx 4096 Jan 21 21:08 conf 
drwxr-xr-x 2 getx getx 4096 Jan 18 12:50 lib 
-rw-r--r-- 1 getx getx 37951 Apr 29 2013 LICENSE 
drwxr-xr-x 2 getx getx 4096 Jan 21 21:08 logs 
-rw-r--r-- 1 getx getx 558 Apr 29 2013 NOTICE 
-rw-r--r-- 1 getx getx 9188 Apr 29 2013 RELEASE-NOTES 
-rw-r--r-- 1 getx getx 16287 Apr 29 2013 RUNNING.txt 
drwxr-xr-x 2 getx getx 4096 Jan 18 12:50 temp 
drwxr-xr-x 7 getx getx 4096 Apr 29 2013 webapps 
drwxr-xr-x 3 getx getx 4096 Jan 21 21:08 work

Answer 1

I got to the root of the problem after viewing the Apache logs in $CATALINA_HOME/logs.

This was shown in the logs when I started Apache Tomcat -

/home/getx/Desktop/apache-tomcat-6.0.37/bin/catalina.sh: 373: /home/getx/Desktop/apache-tomcat-6.0.37/bin/catalina.sh: /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin//bin/java: not found

It appears that Apache Tomcat mysteriously adds its own /bin/java.

Removing /bin/java from my $JAVA_HOME variable solved the issue.

Using /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/ as the $JAVA_HOME variable worked.