Running Tomcat manager when you start the server through eclipse

You can't open the tomcat manager by hitting http://localhost:8080 URL when you start the server through eclipse. This is because the eclipse by default creates the tomcat server instance separate from your installation and uses its custom config files for starting and stopping the tomcat. And also it deploys the webapps under workspace temporary folders (Ex: .metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp0). The solutions is to change the default behavior and

You can switch off this default behavior by fallowing the below steps so that you can login to tomcat manager/admin by hitting the http://localhost:8080 URL.
1. Add a new server by right clicking in the servers perspective of your eclipse.
2. Double click on the server added in the above step and change both the server and deploy paths like below.
Server Path : {Tomcat home}
Deploy Path : {Tomcat home}/webapps












3. Start the server.

Note: When you do this, your custom config files will be overwritten in your Tomcat installation each time the tomcat server is started within eclipse. And the manipulation you do through manager/admin will be lost next time the Tomcat server is started in Eclipse.

Mac: 4 easy steps to Install Tomcat on Mac OSX Snow Leapord

4 easy steps to Install Tomcat on Snow Leopard.

STEP 1: -- Download Tomcat 6, Binary Distribution, under Core (zip or tar.gz) from http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi
-- Unzip the downloaded package.

STEP 2: -- Change directories to Library
      cd /Library
-- Create the Tomcat directory
    mkdir Tomcat

-- Copy the unzipped downloaded package: apache-tomcat-6.0.x
-- Paste it in this newly created Directory : /Library/Tomcat. 

STEP 3:
-- Edit the shell local startup script. Create if it does not exist.
nano ~/.profile
-- Add the following 2 lines to the .profile file: (BASH)
-- Remember in apache-tomcat-6.0.x, the 'x' refers to what ever version # you have downloaded
export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home
export CATALINA_HOME=/Library/Tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.x

STEP 4:
-- Open a new Terminal window. Execute the following
-- cd /Library/Tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.x/conf
-- Edit the tomcat-users.xml file
nano tomcat-users.xml
-- Add the following, where admin is the administrator name you assign and password is the password
<user username="admin" password="password" roles="standard,manager,admin"/>

-- The tomcat-users.xml file should look something like this:
<tomcat-users>
<!--
<roll rollname="tomcat"/>
<roll rollname="role1"/>
<user username="tomcat" password="tomcat" roles="tomcat" />
<user username="role1" password="tomcat" roles="role1" />
<user username="both" password="tomcat" roles="tomcat,role1" />
-->
<user username="admin" password="password" roles="standard,manager,admin"/>
</tomcat-users>

-- Save the tomcat-users.xml file and quit the editor

And This is it....
Now, to start tomcat
-- Execute the Tomcat startup script located under /Library/Tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.x/bin
-- ./startup.sh
-- Test it by opening the page : http://localhost:8080/

Now, to stop tomcat
-- Execute the Tomcat startup script located under /Library/Tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.x/bin
-- ./shutdown.sh