Tomcat as Windows Service

To install Tomcat5 as a service follow the "Windows service HOW-TO" instructions on the Apache Tomcat side.

Calling Tomcat5 //IS//MyServiceName blabla will create an entry in the Windows registry located at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MyServiceName

The new installed service when started does a call back to tomcat5.exe specifying the service name and the start parameter.

With tomcat5w //ES//MyServiceName you can monitor the service. Bit similar to the Windows Services application, but it has more functionality like specifying the log level and log location.

In my case the service did not start and I had an error in the log:

[2008-03-05 15:55:24] [443 javajni.c] [error] FindClass org/apache/catalina/startup/Bootstrap failed
[2008-03-05 15:55:24] [997 prunsrv.c] [error] Failed loading main org/apache/catalina/startup/Bootstrap class
[2008-03-05 15:55:24] [1260 prunsrv.c] [error] ServiceStart returned 3

So a classpath problem. I re-read the instructions and I noticed that the remark " If using tomcat5.exe, " put me on the wrong foot. I thought service.bat applied to versions prior 5. Appearently this is not the case because running service.bat worked fine. Looking into the content of service.bat I noticed that there is some classpath manipulation and after installing the service, the service is also updated with JVM options so this way is superior as to the excerpt installing Tomcat5. (In hindsight I completely misinterpreted this)


Deleting the service using //DS removes the entry from the registry.