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How to install and configure ThreadFix on Ubuntu. While currently ThreadFix supports Ubuntu 12.04 and newer, these instructions were developed and tested against Ubuntu 16.04.

Prerequisites

Audience: IT Professional and/or End User
Difficulty: Intermediate
Time needed: Approximately 60 minutes
Tools required: OpenJDK 8, latest version of OpenJDK 11 or Oracle Java 8, latest version of Tomcat 8.5, MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server

Install Java

To check the currently-installed version, run the java -version command.

OpenJDK 11

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install openjdk-11-jre

OpenJDK 8

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre

Oracle Java 8

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

Install and Configure Tomcat 8.5

ThreadFix recommends the latest version of Tomcat 8.5. Note versions prior to 8.5.78 are not recommended due to security exploit CVE-2022-22965.

1. Download the latest version of Tomcat 8.5.

wget https://dlcdn.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.5.8695/bin/apache-tomcat-8.5.8695.tar.gz

If the above command doesn't work, the download may have been moved/updated. Browse to https://tomcat.apache.org/download-80.cgi  to determine the most recent version available.

2. Create a directory to install Tomcat 8.5, then extract the tar ball there.

sudo mkdir /opt/tomcat
sudo tar xvf apache-tomcat-8*tar.gz -C /opt/tomcat --strip-components=1

3. Create a group and user to manage the Tomcat execution.

sudo groupadd tomcat
sudo useradd -s /bin/false -g tomcat -d /opt/tomcat tomcat

Web.xml Update

For compatibility with Tomcat 8.5.43 and newer, make the following update:

Open the <tomcat-deploy>/conf/web.xml file in a text editor with elevated privilege and edit the default servlet as follows:

• OLD

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>debug</param-name>
        <param-value>0</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>listings</param-name>
        <param-value>false</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

• NEW

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>debug</param-name>
        <param-value>0</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>listings</param-name>
        <param-value>false</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>fileEncoding</param-name>
        <param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

Enable Tomcat Service

If you want tomcat to run as a service that you can have start automatically at boot, the preferred method in Ubuntu 16.04 is using systemd.  Create a file at /etc/systemd/system/tomcat.service with the following content.

# Systemd unit file for tomcat
[Unit]
Description=Apache Tomcat Web Application Container
After=mysql.service network.target
 
[Service]
Type=forking
 
Environment=JAVA_HOME=/usr
Environment=CATALINA_PID=/opt/tomcat/temp/tomcat.pid
Environment=CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat
Environment=CATALINA_BASE=/opt/tomcat
Environment='CATALINA_OPTS=-Xms2G -Xmx8G -server -XX:+UseParallelGC'
Environment='JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.security.egd=file:/dev/./urandom'
 
ExecStart=/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh
ExecStop=/bin/kill -15 $MAINPID
 
User=tomcat
Group=tomcat
UMask=0007
RestartSec=10
Restart=always
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload Systemd to load the Tomcat unit file and enable the tomcat.service.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable tomcat.service

SSL/TLS Implementation

For information on configuring Tomcat to run over SSL/TLS, refer to the following article.

Install and Configure the Database

• To install and configure MySQL, refer to the Ubuntu MySQL Installation and Configuration page.

• To install and configure Microsoft SQL Server, refer to the Windows SQL Server Configuration page.

Install and Configure ThreadFix

Once you've followed the steps above, you're ready to install ThreadFix.  Please see the ThreadFix Installation guide to complete your deployment.