bitnami/tomcat
Bitnami container image for Tomcat
5M+
Apache Tomcat is an open-source web server designed to host and run Java-based web applications. It is a lightweight server with a good performance for applications running in production environments.
Overview of Apache Tomcat Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
docker run --name tomcat bitnami/tomcat:latest
You can find the default credentials and available configuration options in the Environment Variables section.
Looking to use Apache Tomcat in production? Try VMware Tanzu Application Catalog, the commercial edition of the Bitnami catalog.
Deploying Bitnami applications as Helm Charts is the easiest way to get started with our applications on Kubernetes. Read more about the installation in the Bitnami Apache Apache Tomcat Chart GitHub repository.
Bitnami containers can be used with Kubeapps for deployment and management of Helm Charts in clusters.
Non-root container images add an extra layer of security and are generally recommended for production environments. However, because they run as a non-root user, privileged tasks are typically off-limits. Learn more about non-root containers in our docs.
Starting December 10th 2024, only the latest stable branch of any container will receive updates in the free Bitnami catalog. To access up-to-date releases for all upstream-supported branches, consider upgrading to Bitnami Premium. Previous versions already released will not be deleted. They are still available to pull from DockerHub.
Please check the Bitnami Premium page in our partner Arrow Electronics for more information.
Dockerfile
linksLearn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.
You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml
file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml
.
Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo.
The recommended way to get the Bitnami Apache Tomcat Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull bitnami/tomcat:latest
To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull bitnami/tomcat:[TAG]
If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build
command. Remember to replace the APP
, VERSION
and OPERATING-SYSTEM
path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.
git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .
If you remove the container all your data and configurations will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.
For persistence you should mount a directory at the /bitnami
path. If the mounted directory is empty, it will be initialized on the first run.
docker run -v /path/to/tomcat-persistence:/bitnami bitnami/tomcat:latest
Alternatively, modify the docker-compose.yml
file present in this repository:
services:
tomcat:
...
volumes:
- /path/to/tomcat-persistence:/bitnami
...
NOTE: As this is a non-root container, the mounted files and directories must have the proper permissions for the UID
1001
.
The /bitnami/tomcat/data
directory is configured as the Apache Tomcat webapps deployment directory. At this location, you either copy a so-called exploded web application, i.e. non-compressed, or a compressed web application resource (.WAR
) file and it will automatically be deployed by Apache Tomcat.
Additionally a helper symlink /app
is present that points to the webapps deployment directory which enables us to deploy applications on a running Apache Tomcat instance by simply doing:
docker cp /path/to/app.war tomcat:/app
In case you want to create a custom image that already contains your application war file, you need to add it to the /opt/bitnami/tomcat/webapps
folder. In the example below we create a forked image with an extra .war
file.
FROM bitnami/tomcat:9.0
COPY sample.war /opt/bitnami/tomcat/webapps
Note! You can also deploy web applications on a running Apache Tomcat instance using the Apache Tomcat management interface.
Further Reading:
To access your web server from your host machine you can ask Docker to map a random port on your host to port 8080
exposed in the container.
docker run --name tomcat -P bitnami/tomcat:latest
Run docker port
to determine the random ports Docker assigned.
$ docker port tomcat
8080/tcp -> 0.0.0.0:32768
You can also manually specify the ports you want forwarded from your host to the container.
docker run -p 8080:8080 bitnami/tomcat:latest
Access your web server in the browser by navigating to http://localhost:8080
.
Customizable environment variables
Name | Description | Default Value |
---|---|---|
TOMCAT_SHUTDOWN_PORT_NUMBER | Tomcat shutdown port number. | 8005 |
TOMCAT_HTTP_PORT_NUMBER | Tomcat HTTP port number. | 8080 |
TOMCAT_AJP_PORT_NUMBER | Tomcat AJP port number. | 8009 |
TOMCAT_USERNAME | Tomcat username. | manager |
TOMCAT_PASSWORD | Tomcat password. | nil |
TOMCAT_ALLOW_REMOTE_MANAGEMENT | Whether to allow connections from remote addresses to the Tomcat manager application. | yes |
TOMCAT_ENABLE_AUTH | Whether to enable authentication for Tomcat manager applications. | yes |
TOMCAT_ENABLE_AJP | Whether to enable the Tomcat AJP connector. | no |
TOMCAT_START_RETRIES | The number or retries while waiting for Catalina to start. | 12 |
TOMCAT_EXTRA_JAVA_OPTS | Additional Java settings for Tomcat. | nil |
TOMCAT_INSTALL_DEFAULT_WEBAPPS | Whether to add default webapps (ROOT, manager, host-manager, etc.) for deployment. | yes |
JAVA_OPTS | Java runtime parameters. | -Djava.awt.headless=true -XX:+UseG1GC -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Djava.net.preferIPv4Addresses=true -Duser.home=${TOMCAT_HOME} |
Read-only environment variables
Name | Description | Value |
---|---|---|
TOMCAT_BASE_DIR | Tomcat installation directory. | ${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/tomcat |
TOMCAT_VOLUME_DIR | Tomcat persistence directory. | /bitnami/tomcat |
TOMCAT_BIN_DIR | Tomcat directory for binary files. | ${TOMCAT_BASE_DIR}/bin |
TOMCAT_LIB_DIR | Tomcat directory for library files. | ${TOMCAT_BASE_DIR}/lib |
TOMCAT_WORK_DIR | Tomcat directory for runtime files. | ${TOMCAT_BASE_DIR}/work |
TOMCAT_WEBAPPS_DIR | Tomcat directory where webapps are stored. | ${TOMCAT_VOLUME_DIR}/webapps |
TOMCAT_CONF_DIR | Tomcat configuration directory. | ${TOMCAT_BASE_DIR}/conf |
TOMCAT_DEFAULT_CONF_DIR | Tomcat default configuration directory. | ${TOMCAT_BASE_DIR}/conf.default |
TOMCAT_CONF_FILE | Tomcat configuration file. | ${TOMCAT_CONF_DIR}/server.xml |
TOMCAT_USERS_CONF_FILE | Tomcat configuration file. | ${TOMCAT_CONF_DIR}/tomcat-users.xml |
TOMCAT_LOGS_DIR | Directory where Tomcat logs are stored. | ${TOMCAT_BASE_DIR}/logs |
TOMCAT_TMP_DIR | Directory where Tomcat temporary files are stored. | ${TOMCAT_BASE_DIR}/temp |
TOMCAT_LOG_FILE | Path to the log file for Tomcat. | ${TOMCAT_LOGS_DIR}/catalina.out |
TOMCAT_PID_FILE | Path to the PID file for Tomcat. | ${TOMCAT_TMP_DIR}/catalina.pid |
TOMCAT_HOME | Tomcat home directory. | $TOMCAT_BASE_DIR |
TOMCAT_DAEMON_USER | Tomcat system user. | tomcat |
TOMCAT_DAEMON_GROUP | Tomcat system group. | tomcat |
JAVA_HOME | Java installation folder. | ${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/java |
Creating a custom user
By default, a management user named manager
is created and is not assigned a password. Passing the TOMCAT_PASSWORD
environment variable when running the image for the first time will set the password of this user to the value of TOMCAT_PASSWORD
.
Additionally you can specify a user name for the management user using the TOMCAT_USERNAME
environment variable. When not specified, the TOMCAT_PASSWORD
configuration is applied on the default user (manager
).
Specifying Environment variables using Docker Compose
This requires a minor change to the docker-compose.yml
file present in this repository:
services:
tomcat:
...
environment:
- TOMCAT_USERNAME=my_user
- TOMCAT_PASSWORD=my_password
...
Specifying Environment variables on the Docker command line
docker run --name tomcat \
-e TOMCAT_USERNAME=my_user \
-e TOMCAT_PASSWORD=my_password \
bitnami/tomcat:latest
During the initialization of the container, the default Apache Tomcat configuration files are modified with the basic options defined through environment variables. If you want to add more specific configuration options, you can always mount your own configuration files under /opt/bitnami/tomcat/conf/
to override the existing ones. Please note that those files should be writable by the system user of the container.
docker run --name tomcat -v /path/to/config/server.xml:/opt/bitnami/tomcat/conf/server.xml bitnami/tomcat:latest
or using Docker Compose:
services:
tomcat:
...
volumes:
- /path/to/config/server.xml:/opt/bitnami/tomcat/conf/server.xml
...
Refer to the Apache Tomcat configuration manual for the complete list of configuration options.
The Bitnami Apache Tomcat Docker image sends the container logs to the stdout
. To view the logs:
docker logs tomcat
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose logs tomcat
You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver
option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file
driver.
Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of Apache Tomcat, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.
Step 1: Get the updated image
docker pull bitnami/tomcat:latest
or if you're using Docker Compose, update the value of the image property to
bitnami/tomcat:latest
.
Step 2: Stop and backup the currently running container
Stop the currently running container using the command
docker stop tomcat
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose stop tomcat
Next, take a snapshot of the persistent volume /path/to/tomcat-persistence
using:
rsync -a /path/to/tomcat-persistence /path/to/tomcat-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)
Step 3: Remove the currently running container
docker rm -v tomcat
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose rm -v tomcat
Step 4: Run the new image
Re-create your container from the new image.
docker run --name tomcat bitnami/tomcat:latest
or using Docker Compose:
docker-compose up tomcat
rootfs/
folder.root
user and the Apache Tomcat daemon was started as the tomcat
user. From now on, both the container and the Apache Tomcat daemon run as user 1001
. As a consequence, the data directory must be writable by that user. You can revert this behavior by changing USER 1001
to USER root
in the Dockerfile.TOMCAT_USER
parameter has been renamed to TOMCAT_USERNAME
./bitnami/tomcat
. Now you only need to mount a single volume at /bitnami/tomcat
for persistence.stdout
and are no longer collected in the volume.docker-compose.yaml
Please be aware this file has not undergone internal testing. Consequently, we advise its use exclusively for development or testing purposes. For production-ready deployments, we highly recommend utilizing its associated Bitnami Helm chart.
If you detect any issue in the docker-compose.yaml
file, feel free to report it or contribute with a fix by following our Contributing Guidelines.
We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue or submitting a pull request with your contribution.
If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.
Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.