manual tomcat install versus apt

[Thufir]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:04:37 +0100, Thierry Carrez wrote:

> Thufir wrote:
>> On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 19:59:32 -0500, John DeCarlo wrote:
>> 
>>> On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Thufir <hawat.thufir at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  why don't the apt-get commands at:
>>>> https://help.ubuntu.com/8.10/serverguide/C/tomcat.html script the
>>>> install process which the howtogeek site lays out?  Is there a
>>>> security concern which the help.ubuntu.com directions are trying to
>>>> address?
>>>>
>>> I ran into this issue years ago.  I could never get a useful answer
>>> and gave up.  Besides, you get access to a newer version if you
>>> install by hand.

One of the points I'm trying to get across is that it's not just me.

> If the howto you refer to is [1] then it was written even before the
> Tomcat 6 packages were added to Ubuntu. It details how to download a
> Tomcat binary from the Apache website and manually deploy it under
> Ubuntu.
> 
> [1] http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/installing-tomcat-6-on-ubuntu/

Yes, this is the how-to I followed.  However, let's ask:  why is there 
even such a how-to?  why wouldn't it just advise to use apt-get?
 
> The instructions in the server guide [2] are about installing the
> tomcat6 package from the Ubuntu repositories. You then benefit from the
> bugfixes and updates that we provide to our repositories contents. It's
> also so much simpler to just run "sudo apt-get install tomcat6".
> 
> [2] https://help.ubuntu.com/8.10/serverguide/C/tomcat.html
> 
> The security concern would be that if your manual install is affected by
> a vulnerability (which is the case for the 6.0.14 recommended in your
> howto) you have to learn about it and update the software manually. By
> using the official Ubuntu packages you get the security fixes in the
> regular update process.


Ah, by security concerns, that's not what I meant.  Sure, I'd love to use 
apt-get to install tomcat, as would others. However, the apt-get method 
installs tomcat strangely, and because of this strangeness myself, and 
others, opt to instead install it manually.

Again, manually installing Tomcat works fine, but using apt-get causes 
strangeness.  For that reason, I, and others, as evidenced by the mere 
existence of how-to's on the topic, opt not to use apt-get.

Which brings us back to:  what is it that's odd about the apt-get 
install?  why doesn't it just do the bog standard manual install, but 
scripted?



thanks,

Thufir