Deploy java web application with NetBeans and Tomcat

Question

I'm try to deploy a java application with netbeans and tomcat8. When I click debug I get the exception in "Apache Tomcat or TomEE" tab:

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/share/tomcat8/conf/Catalina/localhost/transactionsApp.xml (Permiso denegado)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.open0(Native Method)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(FileOutputStream.java:270)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:213)
    at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:162)
    at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.copyInternal(ManagerServlet.java:1607)
    at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.copy(ManagerServlet.java:1570)
    at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.deploy(ManagerServlet.java:867)
    at org.apache.catalina.manager.ManagerServlet.doGet(ManagerServlet.java:335)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:618)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:725)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:291)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
    at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
    at org.apache.catalina.filters.SetCharacterEncodingFilter.doFilter(SetCharacterEncodingFilter.java:108)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:219)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:106)
    at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:618)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:142)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:610)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:88)
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:537)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1081)
    at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:658)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11NioProtocol.java:222)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1566)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1523)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

The problem is that user runs netbeans does not have permissions to write to /usr/share/tomcat8/conf/Catalina/localhost so I tried to run netbeans from console: sudo /usr/local/netbeans/8.0.2/bin/netbeans and then the deploy works fine!

There is another way to do the deploys with netbeans and tomcat? I don't want to run netbeans always from console with sudo.

Answer 1

Some distributions (eg Ubuntu/Debian) have per-user Tomcat packages that symlinks binaries to the /usr/share ones but otherwise allow each user full write access to the config and working directories.

See https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/tomcat.html#tomcat-user