Optional: Manually installing a Tomcat application server on the Experience Portal server

Last Updated : Jun 05, 2026 |

Experience Portal includes an automated installation script for the Tomcat 8.5.xx application server.

About this task

Note:

For details about the automated installation script, see Optional: Installing a Tomcat application server on the Experience Portal server.

Before you begin

  • Install the Experience Portal software on the server.

  • Experience Portal includes the Tomcat installation tar file for Tomcat 8.5.xx. To install a later build of the Tomcat application server, download the appropriate Tomcat installation tar file from the Apache website http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/ and ensure that the file is available.

Procedure

  1. Log in to Linux on the Experience Portal server in one of the following ways:

    • Log on to the local Linux console as root.

    • Log on remotely as a non-root user, and then change the user to root by entering the su - root command.

  2. Create the installation directory by running the mkdir /opt/Tomcat/AppServer command.
  3. Navigate to the installation directory by running the cd /opt/Tomcat/AppServer command.
  4. To:

    • Use the Tomcat 8.5.xx installation tar file installed with Experience Portal, run the cp $AVAYA_HOME/Support/AppServer/manual/apache-tomcat-8.5.xx_ae.tar.gz . command.

    • Use the installation tar file you downloaded from the Apache website, copy that file to the directory by running the cp pathname/tomcat-tar-file . command, where pathname/tomcat-tar-file is the name of the Tomcat installation tar file.

  5. Install the server by running the tar -zxvf tomcat-tar-file command, where tomcat-tar-file is the name of the Tomcat installation tar file.

    The Tomcat files are extracted to /opt/Tomcat/AppServer/tomcat-subdirectory, where tomcat-subdirectory is the name of the Tomcat installation tar file without the .tar.gz extensions. For example, if you extract the apache-tomcat-8.5.xx_ae.tar.gz installation file that was installed with Experience Portal, the installation subdirectory is apache-tomcat-8.5.xx.

  6. Create a soft link for the new directory by running the ln -s /opt/Tomcat/AppServer/tomcat-subdirectory tomcat command.
  7. Navigate to the new Tomcat bin directory by running the cd tomcat/bin command.
  8. Copy the configuration files by running the following commands:

    • cp startup.sh startup.sh.old

    • cp shutdown.sh shutdown.sh.old

  9. Modify the startup configuration script:
    1. Open startup.sh in the ASCII editor of your choice.
    2. Add the following export variable-name statements at the top of the script: 
      export CATALINA_BASE=/opt/Tomcat/AppServer/tomcat
export CATALINA_HOME=/opt/Tomcat/AppServer/tomcat
export JAVA_OPTS="-server –Xmx1024M -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC 
-XX:ThreadStackSize=512 -Davaya.appserver.type=tomcatappserver"
      Important:

      Specify each export variable-name line on a separate line without line breaks. If you copy these lines from documentation, ensure that you remove the extra line break in the export JAVA_OPTS definition. Also, retype the hyphens to remove hidden characters.

      In addition, if you installed Tomcat in a directory other than /opt/Tomcat/AppServer, ensure that you change the export variable-name statements accordingly.

    3. Save and close the file.
  10. Modify the shutdown configuration script:
    1. Open shutdown.sh in the ASCII editor of your choice.
    2. Add the following environment variables at the top of the script: 
      export CATALINA_BASE=/opt/Tomcat/AppServer/tomcat
export CATALINA_HOME=/opt/Tomcat/AppServer/tomcat
    3. Save and close the file.
  11. Modify the Tomcat configuration XML file:
    1. Navigate to the configuration directory by running the cd tomcat-subdirectory/conf command.
    2. Copy the configuration file by running the cp server.xml server.xml.old command.
    3. Open server.xml in the XML editor of your choice.
    4. Change the port numbers as shown:

      Change port number...

      To port number...

      8080

      7080

      8443

      7443

      8005

      7005

      8009

      7009
    5. Save and close the file.
  12. Modify the Tomcat context configuration XML file:
    1. Navigate to the configuration directory by running the cd tomcat-subdirectory/webapps/manager/META-INF command.
    2. Copy the configuration file by running the cp context.xml context.xml.old command.
    3. Open context.xml in the XML editor of your choice.
    4. Comment out the Value xml tag with className set to “org.apache.catalina.values.RemoteAddrValue” using the <!-- start comments and --> end comment tags as shown below: 
      <!--
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteAddrValve"
   allow="127\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+|::1|0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1" />
-->
    5. Save and close the file.
  13. Before you configure the Application server to run as a Linux service, you must define an environment variable so that the service script can always find the Application server. To define the variable:
    1. Run the cd /etc/profile.d command.
    2. Copy the Avaya-provided configuration files to this directory by running the cp $AVAYA_HOME/Support/AppServer/manual/appserver.* . command.
    3. If you installed Tomcat in a directory other than /opt/Tomcat/AppServer:

      • Open the appserver.sh script in an ASCII editor and change all occurrences of /opt/Tomcat/AppServer to the directory in which you installed Tomcat.

      • Open the appserver.csh script in an ASCII editor and change all occurrences of /opt/Tomcat/AppServer to the directory in which you installed Tomcat.

    4. Set the configuration file permissions by running the chmod 0755 appserver.* command.
    5. Log out and re-log in for the environment variables to take effect.
  14. Configure the Application server to run as a Linux systemyd service so that the Application server responds to the Linux systemyd service command and the Linux automatically restarts the Application server if the machine reboots:
    1. Run the cd /etc/systemd/system command.
    2. Copy the Avaya-provided Application server script to this directory by running the cp $AVAYA_HOME/Support/AppServer/appserver.service . command.
    3. Set the script permissions by running the chmod 0755 appserver.service command.
    4. Open the appserver.service script in an ASCII editor and change all instances of %%APPSERVER_HOME%% with the directory you installed on the appserver.
    5. Change the ownership of the directories by entering the following commands:

      chown -R avayavp:avayavpgroup $APPSERVER_HOME/logs

      chown -R avayavp:avayavpgroup $APPSERVER_HOME/lib

      chown -R avayavp:avayavpgroup $APPSERVER_HOME/conf

      chown —R avayavp:avayavpgroup $APPSERVER_HOME/bin

      chown —R avayavp:avayavpgroup $APPSERVER_HOME/temp

      chown —R avayavp:avayavpgroup $APPSERVER_HOME/work

      chown —R avayavp:avayavpgroup $APPSERVER_HOME/webapps

    6. Copy the Avaya-provided Application server pre-script to the $APPSERVER_HOME/.. directory by running the command:

      cp $AVAYA_HOME/Support/AppServer/appserver-pre.sh $APPSERVER_HOME/..

    7. Set the script permissions by running the chmod 0755 $APPSERVER_HOME/../appserver-pre.sh command.
    8. Register the service by running the following commands:

      systemctl daemon-reload

      systemctl enable appserver.service

    9. Start the Application server by running the systemctl start appserver.service command.
    10. Give the server time to start, and then check the server status by running the systemctl is-active appserver command.

      The server must respond that the Tomcat service is running.

    11. If you want to administer the server, open a web browser and go to http://EPMS-server:7080/manager/html, where EPMS-server is the hostname or IP address of the Experience Portal server.
  15. In the /opt/Tomcat/tomcat/lib/config/voiceportal.properties file, set the value of enableLocalAppServer to true and then restart the vpms service.
  16. Restart the vpms service by entering the /sbin/service vpms restart command.