Tomcat doesn't start

If you are unable to start Tomcat, it is recommended that you check your catalina.out log files, which are located in the logs directory under the Tomcat home directory, for tips on why it might not have started. If you need help finding your Tomcat home directory, look in the C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation directory on Windows, or type "locate tomcat" on Linux or OS X. You might also be able to use your package management tools to find out where the package was installed.

If catalina.out (the main log file) does not provide the information you need, read the other log files, including localhost.yyyy-MM-dd.log (where yyyy-MM-dd is the date). If there are no log files at all in the logs directory, it may be because the Tomcat JVM process does not have read/write permissions to the logs directory. Inspect the permissions of the logs directory. If the Tomcat JVM process has sufficient permissions to write log files there, check your conf/logging.properties file to see where your logs are configured to go.

Many Tomcat JVM startup problems are caused by having no Java Development Kit (JDK) or Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed, or by having an incompatible or incomplete one installed. You must have Java 1.5 or higher installed, preferably any Java SE 1.6.x JDK, which you can download from http://java.sun.com. (The best method of installing Java depends on your operating system.) To determine which version of Java you have, try running "locate java", "which java", and "java -version" on non-Windows environments.