Question

Difference between CATALINA_OPTS and JAVA_OPTS in TOMCAT

Asked by: rbtt

I am running TOMCAT on LINUX and is in the process of tuning my memory settings.
What is the difference between CATALINA_OPTS and JAVA_OPTS in the catalina.sh?

How do I know when to change either?
Does one of the valuse nee to be higher than the other?

Thanks.

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Asked On
2008-02-13 at 06:43:35ID23159662
Tags

Apache

,

Tomcat

,

5.5.**

Topics

Apache Tomcat Application Server

,

Apache Web Server

,

Web Servers

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2008-02-13 at 23:32:37ID: 20891600

JAVA_OPTS may be used by any java lib, while CATALINA_OPTS is used for tomcat (catalina) only

 

by: rbttPosted on 2008-02-14 at 02:56:03ID: 20892315

thank you.

Just to clarify: If I am using tomcat, I can use JAVA_OPTS to increase the total JAVA memory but I need to use CATALINA_OPTS to increase TOMCAT JAVA memory.

In the catalina.sh file if the following be added:
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Xms256M -Xmx1024M"
CATALINA_OPTS="$CATALINA_OPTS -Xms512M -Xmx512M"

Will this translate to JAVA has an allocation of 1G and TOMCAt is allowed to 512M out the 1G?
Thanks


 

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2008-02-14 at 04:07:04ID: 20892605

> .. but I need to use CATALINA_OPTS to increase TOMCAT JAVA memory
not exactly: this will increase tomcat memory, java meory is still done by JAVA_OPTS
I'm not sure both need to be the same. Also keep in mind that tomcat itself is java, so I guess you need to dig deep into the docs to find out how these option differ, combine and/or interact with each other.

 

by: rbttPosted on 2008-02-14 at 09:41:21ID: 20895369

Basically I am seeing that there are two java processes running on my server. One that is being run as root and one being run as the tomcat user.

Does TOMCAT start a separate JAVA instance to be used soley by TOMCAT?

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2008-02-15 at 05:59:20ID: 20901628

standard configuration of tomcat is to be run as user, so the question is: did you start tomcat as root? Is the other java process probably something else, not related to *this* tomcat?

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