1. Check if the correct version of Java is installed

JAVA is required for Tomcat to work, CentOS 7 comes with JAVA 7 witch is the needed version. To check if it is installed run:

# java -version
java version "1.7.0_55"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (rhel-2.4.7.2.el7_0-x86_64 u55-b13)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.51-b03, mixed mode)

In case java is not installed on your system or you have version 1.6.x, you can install it by running:

# yum install java-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64 java-1.7.0-openjdk-devel

2. Download Tomcat

You can find the latest version of  Tomcat at its download page. You can download it with wget and extract it with tar like this:

# cd /usr/share
# wget http://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.0.9/bin/apache-tomcat-8.0.9.tar.gz
# tar zxvf apache-tomcat-8.0.9.tar.gz

3. Add tomcat user & group

As it is not recommended to run Tomcat as root we will need to create an unprivileged user for it and set the apropiate owner of the tomcat folder:

# groupadd tomcat
# useradd -g tomcat -s /bin/bash -d /usr/share/apache-tomcat-8.0.9 tomcat
# chown -Rf tomcat.tomcat /usr/share/apache-tomcat-8.0.9/

4. Running Tomcat

To start tomcat we will first need to switch to the unprivileged user with:

# su – tomcat

And starting tomcat is as easy as running its startup script like this:

$ cd bin
$ ./startup.sh

The output should look like:

Using CATALINA_BASE: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-8.0.9
Using CATALINA_HOME: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-8.0.9
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-8.0.9/temp
Using JRE_HOME: /
Using CLASSPATH: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-8.0.9/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/share/apache-tomcat-8.0.9/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Tomcat started.

You should now be able to access it with a browser by either accessing http://localhost:8080 if this is a local computer or http://SERVER-IP:8080 if you are running it on a remote host.

To shutdown Tomcat you can simply run the shutdown script in the same folder like this:

$ ./shutdown.sh

5. Setup user accounts

Finally you have to configure Tomcat users so they can access admin/manager sections. You can do this by adding the users in the conf/tomcat-users.xml file with your favorite text editor. Add this text to the file:

<user username="manager" password="PASSWORD" roles="manager-gui" />

<user username="admin" password="PASSWORD" roles="manager-gui,admin-gui" />

6. Running Multiple Instances of Tomcat (Optional)

Sometimes you need to run more than one instance of Tomcat on the same server. To do this, as root, go back to the /usr/share directory where you first downloaded tomcat and extract it again in a different folder like this:

# cd /usr/share
# mkdir apache-tomcat-2
# tar zxvf apache-tomcat-8.0.9.tar.gz -C apache-tomcat-2 --strip-components 1
# chown -Rf tomcat.tomcat /usr/share/apache-tomcat-2/

Now we need to open the config/server.xml file in the new installation folder and change the port numbers like this:

The shutdown port from:

<Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">

to:

<Server port="8006" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">

The connector port from:

<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="8443" />

to:

<Connector port="8081" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="8443" />

And the AJP port from:

    <Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" />

to:

<Connector port="8010" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" />

Now you can just switch back to the tomcat user and start the second instance like this:

# su - tomcat
$ cd /usr/share/apache-tomcat-2/bin/
$ ./startup.sh
Using CATALINA_BASE: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-2
Using CATALINA_HOME: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-2
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-2/temp
Using JRE_HOME: /
Using CLASSPATH: /usr/share/apache-tomcat-2/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/share/apache-tomcat-2/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Tomcat started.

You can now access the new instance of tomcat with your browser at http://localhost:8081/

Congratulation you now have Tomcat installed and ready to use!