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Installing Software on Linux from the Source (Not YUM)

Introduction

This post aims to show how you can install software from the source (e.g. a .tar file) instead of using yum or custom .rpm installs. This is useful if you have a lot of custom configurations and do not want an installer to make decisions and configuration changes for you. This technique is often used for large, custom web apps.

We are going to use two pieces of software as an example: OpenJDK and Tomcat. Let's get to it!

*Please note that we are installing both of these pieces of software in /etc/java and /etc/tomcat respectively. You can obviously place them wherever you need to.

OpenJDK Download and Install Instructions (Without Using an Installer)
Assumptions
  • Using OpenJDK 11
  • Installing on a Linux machine
  • Run all commands as root
Steps
  • Download the .tar from this link. Download it directly to the box with this command:
wget https://download.java.net/openjdk/jdk11/ri/openjdk-11+28_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz
  • ssh to the box where the .tar exists, cd to the directory where you put the .tar, and run the following:
tar xvf openjdk-11*_bin.tar.gz --directory /etc  
mv /etc/jdk-11* /etc/java
  • Add the following to your .bash_profile or .bashrc file and then source it (source .bash_profile):
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin/:/etc/java/bin  
JAVA_HOME=/etc/java/  
export PATH  
export JAVA_HOME
  • Verify the install with java -version
Tomcat Download and Install Instructions (Without Using an Installer)
Assumptions
  • Using Tomcat 9
  • Installing on a Linux machine
  • OpenJDK 11 is already installed
  • Run all commands as root
Steps
  • Download the .tar from this link. Download it directly to the box with this command:
wget http://mirror.cc.columbia.edu/pub/software/apache/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.22/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.22.tar.gz
  • ssh to the box where the .tar exists, cd to the directory where you put the .tar, and run the following:
tar xvf apache-tomcat-*.tar.gz --directory /etc  
mv /etc/apache-tomcat-* /etc/tomcat
  • Add the following to your .bash_profile or .bashrc file and then source it (source .bash_profile):
CATALINA_HOME=/etc/tomcat  
export CATALINA_HOME

  • Start tomcat: /etc/tomcat/bin/catalina.sh start

  • Verify it is running: ps -ef | grep tomcat

Conclusion

If all goes well, you should have Java and Tomcat installed and running! You can see that this is fairly simple to do and also useful for ensuring you know exactly what changes are made to your system during an install.

Please let me know if you have any questions! [email protected]