Faculty of ESBE  Internet Protocols & Technologies 
 
 
Dr. Perry XIAO Copyright © 2000-2007, London South Bank University 1 
Lab 1: Installing Java SE JDK 6 and Tomcat 6 
 
 
The aim of this lab session is to download and install Java SE JDK 6 and the Tomcat binaries on a 
Linux system, to make it a web applications server. 
 
Equipments: 
Two networked PCs with Red Hat Linux operating systems, logbook, and a USB memory stick for 
saving your work. 
 
Exercises 1: 
 
1. To download Java SE SDK 6, just go to http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp, 
and follow the instructions to download a file called: jdk-6-linux-i586-rpm.bin, and save 
it in \root directory. 
2. To install Java SE SDK, just type following commands in \root directory. 
 
#chmod  755  jdk-6-linux-i586-rpm.bin 
#./jdk-6-linux-i586-rpm.bin 
 
3. Java SE JDK 6 should be installed in /usr/java/jdk1.6.0 directory, type following 
command to test it. 
 
#/usr/java//jdk1.6.0/bin/java   -version 
 
Exercises 2: 
 
1. To download Tomcat 6, just go to http://tomcat.apache.org/, follow the instructions to 
download a file called: apache-tomcat-6.0.2.tar.gz, and save it in \root directory. 
2. Next, we are going to install tomcat in \opt directory. Go to \opt directory, and type 
following commands. 
 
#cp  /root/apache-tomcat-6.0.2.tar.gz   /opt 
#tar   -zxvf   apache-tomcat-6.0.2.tar.gz   
 
3. The following command creates a symbolic link to the tomcat directory. 
 
# ln  –s  apache-tomcat-6.0.2   tomcat 
 
4. Insert the following lines inside /etc/profile  or  /root/.bashrc. 
 
export   JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.6.0 
export   CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat 
 
5. Before we begin, we will need to ensure that CATALINA_HOME and JAVA_HOME are 
correctly set. To do this, we open a terminal and type the following : 
 
# echo $CATALINA_HOME 
Faculty of ESBE  Internet Protocols & Technologies 
 
 
Dr. Perry XIAO Copyright © 2000-2007, London South Bank University 2 
# echo $JAVA_HOME 
 
6. If everything is fine, you can start Tomcat with the following command.  
 
# $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh 
 
7. To test that Tomcat is running, from another computer, go to graphical desktop, open a 
web browser, and type in following URL: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080, where 
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the first computer’s IP address or domain name. If everything is fine, 
you should be able to see a web page such as this. 
 
 
 
8. To stop Tomcat, type 
 
# $CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh 
 
 
Exercises 3: 
 
1. To create a JSP web application, first you need to create a web application folder structure 
under the /opt/tomcat/webapps directory. In this case, we create a web application called: 
test, following is its structure. 
 
     /opt/tomcat 
          /webapps 
               /test 
                   /WEB-INF 
                        /classes 
                        /lib 
 
2. Create a index.jsp file in the /opt/tomcat/webapps/test folder, and put following lines into 
the file. 
Faculty of ESBE  Internet Protocols & Technologies 
 
 
Dr. Perry XIAO Copyright © 2000-2007, London South Bank University 3 
 
 <%@page contentType="text/html"%> 
 <%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%> 
  
  
  
 
Hello World!
 
 <%--  --%> 
 <%--  --%> 
  
  
  
 
3. From the second computer, go to graphical desktop, open a web browser, and type in 
following URL: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080/test/ , where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the first 
computer’s IP address or domain name. If everything is fine, you should be able to see a 
hello world web page. 
 
 
 
4. Change the