Introduction to Java Server Pages

What we need to get started

We'll need to have JDK 1.3 installed on our system in order for Tomcat 4.0 to work. If we don't already have it, we can get it from java.sun.com

Obtaining Tomcat 4.0

Tomcat 4.0 is an open source and free Servlet Container and JSP Engine. It is developed by Apache Software Foundation's Jakarta Project and is available for download at http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat, or more specifically at http://jakarta.apache.org/site/binindex.php

Choose the latest Tomcat 4.0 version. Currently Tomcat 4.0 beta 5 is the latest version. Once we have downloaded Tomcat 4.0, proceed to the next step

Installing Tomcat 4.0

Unzip the file to a suitable directory. In Windows, you can unzip to C:\ which will create a directory like C:\jakarta-tomcat-4.0-b5 containing Tomcat files

Now we'll have to create two environment variables, CATALINA_HOME and JAVA_HOME. Most probably we'll have JAVA_HOME already created if we have installed Java Development Kit on our system.

To create these environment variables in Windows 2000, go to Start -&git Settings -&git Control Panel -&git System -&git Advanced -&git Environment Variables -&git System variables -&git New. Enter the name and value for CATALINA_HOME

Running Tomcat 4.0

Start Tomcat by running the C:\jakarta-tomcat-4.0-b5\bin\startup.bat batch file. Tomcat server will start and print some status message

Now point your browser to http://localhost:8080 and you should see the default Tomcat home page. To shutdown the server run C:\jakarta-tomcat-4.0-b5\bin\shutdown.bat batch file.