Tomcat 5.5: no JDK found

November 28th, 2007
If you install Tomcat 5.5 (or 5.0) in Ubuntu, you may see Tomcat failing to start because JAVA_HOME is not set:

giannis@giannis-desktop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 start
[sudo] password for giannis:
* no JDK found - please set JAVA_HOME
giannis@giannis-desktop:~$


One way to quickly solve this problem is to edit the file /etc/default/tomcat5.5:

sudo gedit /etc/default/tomcat5.5

Find the section where the JAVA_HOME variable is defined. It should look like this:

# The home directory of the Java development kit (JDK). You need at least
# JDK version 1.4. If JAVA_HOME is not set, some common directories for
# the Sun JDK, various J2SE 1.4 versions, and the free runtimes
# java-gcj-compat-dev and kaffe are tried.
#JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun


Uncomment the line that sets the JAVA_HOME variable, and if necessary provide the java runtime environment of your preference. After editing it should look like this one:

# The home directory of the Java development kit (JDK). You need at least
# JDK version 1.4. If JAVA_HOME is not set, some common directories for
# the Sun JDK, various J2SE 1.4 versions, and the free runtimes
# java-gcj-compat-dev and kaffe are tried.
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun


Save the file and try again to start Tomcat, it should be able to start now:

giannis@giannis-desktop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 start
* Starting Tomcat servlet engine tomcat5.5 [ OK ]
giannis@giannis-desktop:~$


4 Responses to “Tomcat 5.5: no JDK found”

  1. bob Says:
    no one likes a smart arse.. so many thanks for this :)
  2. saygley Says:
    worked like britney spears, thx!
  3. Schmigz Says:
    Thank you. Good solution instead of setting it in a non-default location. Also, possible the best comments every below this...
  4. Michael Schneider Says:
    In the Year 2011 it doesn`t work! :-(

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