Why tomcat wont start with Failed to start apache tomcat web server tomcat.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=203

Question

What i wanted to do

I installed fresh linux Ubuntu 16.04 to setup a test developing environment.

I wanted to install

1. java 8
2. tomcat 8

So i applied this tutorial and know that i dont have any previously java or tomcat installed before.

Tutorial for java 8 and tomcat 8 Tutorial 2 same as the before with some more little hints

What is the problem

When i reached the step of starting tomcat , it failed. Failed to start apache tomcat web server tomcat.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=203.

Solution 1

How i tried to reproduce:

I followed the tutorial on a fresh virtual box on ubuntu 16.04.

And after i tried lot of the solution like the below:

1. Playing with chmod and permissions.
2. Un install and re install
3. Updating my ubuntu
4. Restarting my ubuntu
5. Reloading services
6. Double Quotation suggestions in .service paths in (/etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service).
7. Commenting CATALINA_HOME line in .service file in (/etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service).
8. Other googling solutions.

Solution:

From a very small comments from here ( Thanks for the hint )) ) After i got the fail i ran

You should run ‘journalctl -xn’ for more details about why Tomcat failed to start. Thanks.

It gave me the main reason here is screen shot and notice in RED.

• ALL PATHS WAS WRONG ==> So i had to fix about five places for the right path... check Number 2 in Orange check image .

• JAVA_HOME PATH was wrong ==> so to change and find the correct one do this

Then change in tomcat.service check this image again this time look at 1 in bold yellow it should point to JDK.

Result:

So, apparently i had the path wrong , and it WORKED.

Summary:

When applying some tutorial keep an eye when you extract tomcat or etc.. because it may differ.

Solution 2

alternatively you can just start tomcat by going to /path/to/tomcat/bin/ and running ./startup.sh

it will spit out all the variables it is using and you can configure your tomcat.service file accordingly.