Ubuntu – Permissions problem when copying files to /usr/share/tomcat6

First, however tempted you might ever get, never "log in with root". It's far too easy to break things beyond repair. Anyway, this is disabled by default so you'd have to do a whole lot more to get to that point.

/usr/ is owned by the root account so to write files in there you need to write them as root. Two methods (there are undoubtedly more but here are the two main ways for most users):

1. Press Alt+F2 to get a run dialogue and in that type gksu nautilus. This will open up a file browser window running as root. Copy your files across but be careful, you can nuke the system like this.

2. A much more direct method is just loading up a terminal and writing:

   sudo cp -R /path/to/files/you/want/copied/ /copy/to/this/path/
   

   (the -R is just there to recursively copy directories)

If you ever want to fire off multiple commands as root without prepending them all with sudo you can run sudo -i or sudo su and you'll get a root terminal. But again, be careful what you do.

You'll need to use the "manager web-app" to deploy the war file.

• First: create a manager user for tomcat6. Edit /var/lib/tomcat6/conf/tomcat-users.xml and add something like the following (remember to use a unique password):

  role rolename="admin"

  role rolename="manager"

  user username="admin" password="password" roles="admin,manager"

  (Note: look at the examples in /var/lib/tomcat6/conf/tomcat-users.xml. These lines are tags but I can't post tags on AskUbuntu :( Hopefully, it's not too confusing.)

• Next: restart tomcat:

  $sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

• Finally, open http://localhost:8080/manager/html and log-in with the username and password that you just set. On the bottom of the page, there's a dialog box that lets you select and deploy a war file.

HTH