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Unix Daemon

Apache TomEE can be run as a daemon using the jsvc tool from the Apache Commons Daemon project.

Source tarballs for jsvc are included with Tomcat and therefore can be found in TomEE as well. These need to be compiled before jsvc can be used.

Building jsvc

First, we’ll need to locate and unpack the commons-daemon-native.tar.gz

cd $TOMEE_HOME/bin
tar xzvf commons-daemon-native.tar.gz
cd commons-daemon-1.0.7-native-src/unix/

Note that the commons-daemon-1.0.7-native-src directory may have a slightly different version number.

Second, we’ll need to build the jsvc binary. Under a UNIX operating system you will need:

  • An ANSI-C compliant compiler (GCC is good)

  • GNU Make

  • A Java Platform 2 compliant SDK

You have to specify the JAVA_HOME of the SDK either with the --with-java=<dir> parameter or set the JAVA_HOME environment to point to your SDK installation. For example:

./configure --with-java=/usr/java

or

export JAVA_HOME
./configure

If your operating system is supported, configure will go through cleanly, otherwise it will report an error (please send us the details of your OS/JDK, or a patch against the sources). To build the binaries and libraries simply do:

make

This will generate the executable file jsvc.

Finally, we’ll want to set the execution bits and move the jsvc binary

chmod 755 jsvc
mv jsvc $TOMEE_HOME/bin

Done!

As one script, the above might look like:

cd $TOMEE_HOME/bin
tar xzvf commons-daemon-native.tar.gz
cd commons-daemon-1.0.7-native-src/unix/
./configure
make
chmod 755 jsvc
mv jsvc ../..

Starting (unix)

sudo "$TOMEE_HOME/bin/jsvc" -cp "$TOMEE_HOME/bin/bootstrap.jar:$TOMEE_HOME/bin/tomcat-juli.jar" \
    "-javaagent:$TOMEE_HOME/lib/openejb-javaagent.jar" -outfile "$TOMEE_HOME/logs/catalina.out" \
    -errfile "$TOMEE_HOME/logs/catalina.err" org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap

Starting (osx)

For a 64-bit JVM such as OSX Lion

sudo arch -arch x86_64 "$TOMEE_HOME/bin/jsvc" -jvm server -cp "$TOMEE_HOME/bin/bootstrap.jar:$TOMEE_HOME/bin/tomcat-juli.jar" \
    "-javaagent:$TOMEE_HOME/lib/openejb-javaagent.jar" -outfile "$TOMEE_HOME/logs/catalina.out" \
    -errfile "$TOMEE_HOME/logs/catalina.err" org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap

For a 32-bit JVM

sudo arch -arch i386 "$TOMEE_HOME/bin/jsvc" -jvm server -cp "$TOMEE_HOME/bin/bootstrap.jar:$TOMEE_HOME/bin/tomcat-juli.jar" \
    "-javaagent:$TOMEE_HOME/lib/openejb-javaagent.jar" -outfile "$TOMEE_HOME/logs/catalina.out" \
    -errfile "$TOMEE_HOME/logs/catalina.err" org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap

Note on formatting

Note that \ at the end of each line is unix syntax to keep everything effectively as one line and one command. The command is simply too long to show as one line on a fixed width html page. The \ can be removed as long as the resulting command is one long line.

Common Issues

Ensure your $TOME_HOME and $JAVA_HOME variables are set correctly. You should see similar output with the following two commands

mingus:~ 01:51:37
$ ls $TOMEE_HOME
LICENSE     RELEASE-NOTES   bin     endorsed    logs        webapps
NOTICE      RUNNING.txt conf        lib     temp        work

mingus:~ 01:51:46
$ ls $JAVA_HOME
bin bundle  lib man

The jsvc -debug option can also show useful information for troubleshooting:

$TOMEE_HOME/bin/jsvc -debug

Note on OSX, $JAVA_HOME should be set to /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home

Further documentation

See also the full Apache Commons Daemon documentation for jsvc.