Passing JVM arguments to Tomcat when running as a service?

I need to pass a couple of JVM arguments to the JVM which Tomcat is running in so that my application can pick them up.

I want to follow the process outlined in this article to pick up environment variables.

How would I go about doing this?

UPDATE Sorry This is running under windows (7 on my Dev machine 2003 on client server)

Solution 1:

Windows:

In your Tomcat /bin folder, you should have a tomcat5w.exe admin app (or in later versions tomcat6w.ex, tomcat8w.exe, etc). Go to the Java tab and add the args in the "Java Options:" box.

Note that when you add new args, you need to add them as NEW LINES in that box (above or below any others there), not as additional arguments IN FRONT or BACK of values on one of the existing lines.

Linux / UNIX:

In *nix, changes to the setenv.sh file should be picked up:

export JAVA_OPTS=-server -Xms2g -Xmx4g -XX:PermSize=64m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m $JAVA_OPTS

Don't touch catalina.sh or other files in bin

Solution 2:

You need to edit the Windows service. There are three ways to do this:

1. Start Tomcat5w with //MS//ServiceName to get an icon in the system tray which gives you a quick access to the configuration of the service.

2. Open the service manager in the "Control Panel". There is an entry for Tomcat.

In the editor, there is a tab where you can add additional JVM parameters.

The third way (which I prefer) is to write a script which edits the config for you. This way, you can save the config somewhere for backup. See the docs how to do that (Hint: use tomcat5 //US//...)