Starting up the Reader Application

The tail command is very useful when administering the reader application (the corresponding command in the Windows operating system is WinTail). That command makes it possible to monitor Apache Tomcat log files. In the root directory of the Apache Tomcat program, enter: tail -f logs/catalina.out. If the catalina.out file does not exist, you can create it. Next, run Apache Tomcat software and monitor the progress of the start-up on the console where the “tail” command has been run. When the software initialization has finished, the “server started up in” phrase will appear in the logo. Enter the address of the website in the address bar of the browser and verify the functioning of the website.

The Most Frequent Startup Problems with the Reader Application

Errors during the Apache Tomcat 7.0 Startup

Problems may occur during an attempt at running the reader application, and Tomcat logs will have error messages like the following ones:

...
java.rmi.ServerException: RemoteException occurred in server thread; nested exception is:
java.rmi.UnmarshalException: error unmarshalling arguments; nested exception is:
java.net.MalformedURLException: no protocol: Files/Apache
...

The reason for that is an error in JRE which prevents the use of the RMI technology in applications run in the Tomcat software if it is installed in a directory which contains spaces (for example, C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Jakarta Tomcat 7.0). Unfortunately, at this moment, the only known solution to that problem is reinstalling the Tomcat program in a directory the path of which does not include space characters. For detailed information about it, see http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4273532

The User Cannot Log into the Administration Panel

An attempt at logging into or entering the “admin” page is unsuccessful, and the browser displays a message saying that the connection has been rejected. In such a situation, the user should check if HTTPS has been configured correctly.
The most frequent errors made during a HTTPS configuration are:

1. the HTTPS Connector in the tomcat/conf/server.xml file has not been uncommented;
2. there is no .keystore file in the home directory of the user who has run the Apache Tomcat software;
   
   1. it should be remembered that a command to generate a certificate for the Apache Tomcat software must be run by the same user who will run AT;
3. the password entered during the creation of a certificate for AT is not “changeit”;
   
   1. the “changeit” value is the standard password used by AT to access the .keystore file; if the user has decided to use a different password, the user should enter the password used as the value of the keystorePass attribute in the tomcat/conf/server.xml file, in the tag “Connector” (responsible for HTTPS).