# Starting Tomcat at boot time with Ubuntu 18.04 using systemd

**URL:** <https://community.dhis2.org/t/starting-tomcat-at-boot-time-with-ubuntu-18-04-using-systemd/36936>\
**Category:** Implementation - Implémentation\
**Created:** [4 September 2019 15:03 UTC](https://community.dhis2.org/t/starting-tomcat-at-boot-time-with-ubuntu-18-04-using-systemd/36936 "2019-09-04T15:03:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![prcleary](https://dhis2.b-cdn.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/a88e57/32.png) [@prcleary](https://community.dhis2.org/u/prcleary)\
**Post date:** [4 September 2019 15:03 UTC](https://community.dhis2.org/t/starting-tomcat-at-boot-time-with-ubuntu-18-04-using-systemd/36936/1 "2019-09-04T15:03:16Z")

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Hi,

I couldn’t get DHIS 2 (v 2.30 with OpenJDK) to reboot on Ubuntu 18.04 after power outages using the instructions here: [https://docs.dhis2.org/2.30/en/implementer/html/install\_starting\_tomcat\_boot\_time.html](https://docs.dhis2.org/2.30/en/implementer/html/install_starting_tomcat_boot_time.html).

Does 18.04 use systemd instead by default?

I have created a file (`/lib/systemd/system/tomcat.service`) with the following:

```auto
[Unit]
Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container

[Service]
User=dhis
Group=dhis
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/tomcat
ExecStart=/usr/bin/env ${JAVA_HOME}/bin/java \
$JAVA_OPTS \
-classpath ${CLASSPATH} \
-Dcatalina.base=${CATALINA_BASE} \
-Dcatalina.home=${CATALINA_HOME} \
-Djava.endorsed.dirs=${JAVA_ENDORSED_DIRS} \
-Djava.io.tmpdir=${CATALINA_TMPDIR} \
-Djava.util.logging.config.file=${CATALINA_BASE}/conf/logging.properties \
-Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager \
org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap \
start
ExecStop=/usr/bin/env ${JAVA_HOME}/bin/java \
$JAVA_OPTS \
-classpath ${CLASSPATH} \
-Dcatalina.base=${CATALINA_BASE} \
-Dcatalina.home=${CATALINA_HOME} \
-Djava.endorsed.dirs=${JAVA_ENDORSED_DIRS} \
-Djava.io.tmpdir=${CATALINA_TMPDIR} \
-Djava.util.logging.config.file=${CATALINA_BASE}/conf/logging.properties \
-Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager \
org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap \
stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

```

and a settings file (`/etc/default/tomcat`) with the following:

```auto
CATALINA_HOME=/usr/share/tomcat8
CATALINA_BASE=/home/dhis/tomcat-dhis
CATALINA_TMPDIR=/home/dhis/tomcat-dhis/temp
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64
JAVA_OPTS=-Xmx7500m -Xms4000m -Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048 -Djava.protocol.handler.pkgs=org.apache.catalina.webresources -Dorg.apache.catalina.security.SecurityListener.UMASK=0027
JDK_JAVA_OPTIONS= --add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.io=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.rmi/sun.rmi.transport=ALL-UNNAMED
JAVA_ENDORSED_DIRS=
CLASSPATH=/usr/share/tomcat8/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/share/tomcat8/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
DHIS2_HOME=/home/dhis/config

```

[edit: followed by the command: `sudo systemctl enable tomcat`]

and it DHIS 2 now starts up automatically after reboot and seems to function correctly.

Are there any concerns about doing this?

Paul

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![prcleary](https://dhis2.b-cdn.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/a88e57/32.png) [@prcleary](https://community.dhis2.org/u/prcleary)\
**Post date:** [4 September 2019 19:58 UTC](https://community.dhis2.org/t/starting-tomcat-at-boot-time-with-ubuntu-18-04-using-systemd/36936/2 "2019-09-04T19:58:21Z")

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PS for anyone else trying to do something similar with a different setup, you can find out Java options etc by examining the Java process (use `ps` to find the process id first - in this case 863), e.g.:

```auto
paul@dhis2-primary:~$ ps aux|grep java
dhis 863 49.0 14.7 9767836 1774036 ? Ssl 00:45 1:15 /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/bin/java -Xmx7500m -Xms4000m -Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048 -Djava.protocol.handler.pkgs=org.apache.catalina.webresources -Dorg.apache.catalina.security.SecurityListener.UMASK=0027 -classpath /usr/share/tomcat8/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/share/tomcat8/bin/tomcat-juli.jar -Dcatalina.base=/home/dhis/tomcat-dhis -Dcatalina.home=/usr/share/tomcat8 -Djava.endorsed.dirs= -Djava.io.tmpdir=/home/dhis/tomcat-dhis/temp -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/home/dhis/tomcat-dhis/conf/logging.properties -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start
paul 4037 0.0 0.0 13136 1032 pts/0 S+ 00:47 0:00 grep --color=auto java
paul@dhis2-primary:~$ sudo cat /proc/863/environ
[sudo] password for paul:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/binHOME=/home/dhisLOGNAME=dhisUSER=dhisSHELL=/bin/falseINVOCATION_ID=640ed00bfbd74a5683f90c7b452ad90cJOURNAL_STREAM=9:21790CATALINA_HOME=/usr/share/tomcat8CATALINA_BASE=/home/dhis/tomcat-dhisCATALINA_TMPDIR=/home/dhis/tomcat-dhis/tempJAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64JAVA_OPTS=-Xmx7500m -Xms4000m -Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048 -Djava.protocol.handler.pkgs=org.apache.catalina.webresources -Dorg.apache.catalina.security.SecurityListener.UMASK=0027JDK_JAVA_OPTIONS=--add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.io=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.rmi/sun.rmi.transport=ALL-UNNAMEDJAVA_ENDORSED_DIRS=CLASSPATH=/usr/share/tomcat8/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/share/tomcat8/bin/tomcat-juli.jarDHIS2_HOME=/home/dhis/config

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![prcleary](https://dhis2.b-cdn.net/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/a88e57/32.png) [@prcleary](https://community.dhis2.org/u/prcleary)\
**Post date:** [13 September 2019 14:19 UTC](https://community.dhis2.org/t/starting-tomcat-at-boot-time-with-ubuntu-18-04-using-systemd/36936/3 "2019-09-13T14:19:21Z")

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Interestingly, having done the above I found my other issue came back: [https://community.dhis2.org/t/png-pdf-download-with-dhis-2-and-openjdk/36895](https://community.dhis2.org/t/png-pdf-download-with-dhis-2-and-openjdk/36895)

I added `-Djava.awt.headless=true` to `JAVA_OPTS` and commented out the `assistive_technologies` line in `/etc/java-8-openjdk/accessibility.properties` (all following much Googling) and this seems to have solved it, at least for the moment…