Unable to configure tomcat 7 to use own JDK

Question

I have the following problem configuring tomcat 7 to run as a service on windows.

More specifically, tomcat is part of a web application which is installed on our customers' servers, and it must have all of its dependencies inside.

In this case, tomcat depends on the Java JDK/JRE, so I downloaded a standalone jdk (version 1.7u21) with its jre and placed it inside the tomcat folder.

So now my directory tree is like this:

tomcat7
  - bin
  - conf
  - jdk
    - jre
  - logs
  - temp
  - webapps
  - work

I then proceeded installing it as a service using the command

tomcat\bin\service.bat install

And it gets installed with no problem, in jvm mode.

Please note that I modified the service.bat file so that all the needed variables are correctly set, that is, CATALINA_HOME, CATALINA_BASE, JAVA_HOME and JRE_HOME, and the last two point to the internal jdk/jre.

However, if I try to start the service, I get an error which says that it is unable to start the service and refers to error code 1.

Looking in the tomcat logs, it says:

[2013-05-22 12:22:09] [info]  [ 5392] Commons Daemon procrun (1.0.15.0 32-bit) started
[2013-05-22 12:22:10] [info]  [ 5392] Running 'AGEws2Tomcat7' Service...
[2013-05-22 12:22:10] [info]  [ 2764] Starting service...
[2013-05-22 12:22:10] [error] [ 2764] %1 is not a valid Win32 application.
[2013-05-22 12:22:10] [error] [ 2764] Failed creating java C:\AGEws\tomcat7\jdk\jre\bin\server\jvm.dll
[2013-05-22 12:22:10] [error] [ 2764] %1 is not a valid Win32 application.
[2013-05-22 12:22:10] [error] [ 2764] ServiceStart returned 1
[2013-05-22 12:22:11] [error] [ 2764] %1 is not a valid Win32 application.
[2013-05-22 12:22:11] [info]  [ 5392] Run service finished.
[2013-05-22 12:22:11] [info]  [ 5392] Commons Daemon procrun finished

I tried googling a bit about the part Failed creating java and I found out some information about a possible dependency on a .dll file, which I have found but I do not understand where should I place it, if this is indeed the problem.

I also tried installing the service in java mode, and it works but uses my computer's own JVM instead of the internal one, while I need it to use the internal one.

What can/must I do in order to have tomcat work properly as a service in jvm mode, using its own jdk/jre?

Please note that our web application used to ship with tomcat 5, which worked perfectly in jvm mode.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 22 '13 at 12:10

In the end I found out that the solutions was to set the start and stop mode to java while at the same time providing an explicit JAVA_HOME with the option

--JavaHome /path/to/internal/jdk

After doing the modification the service works fine, even if in java mode instead of jvm mode as the old service used to.

Rhys Paterson · Answer 2 · 2015-10-19T06:05:12.597

To clarify on Matteo's answer (and help Windows guys that are not overly familiar with the Java world), we had the exact same issue using Tomcat 8 on 64-bit Windows Server 2012 (non-R2). We were using/configuring IBM Rational DOORS Help 9.6.1 - though we've seen this with most IBM Java/Tomcat-style products when trying to configure on relatively modern 64-bit flavours of Windows.

We had to update the service.bat file located within the Tomcat installation directory with the following:

--StartMode java ^
--StopMode java ^
--JavaHome "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7" ^

The start/stop options were changing from 'jvm' and the JavaHome option is a new addition to the configuration file. Then you perform the installation of the service via:

service.bat install <service name>

In our case, the service name was DOORS_Help. We had a 64-bit Tomcat install and a 32-bit JRE install which obviously then worked together - it's what was provided by the vendor.

Edit: Another option appears to be manually setting the JRE_HOME and JAVA_HOME environment variables before installing Tomcat. Otherwise you will need to re-install the Windows service. I know this kind of contradicts the original post, but it seems not all Tomcat installs are alike!

Unable to configure tomcat 7 to use own JDK

2 Answers2