[Bug 915089] [NEW] Tomcat 6 start up fails with unknown dir /var/lib/tomcat6/work

[Mike Amos]

Public bug reported:

Post-install, system start and start form logged in user fail. 
Package information:  tomcat6 (6.0.28-10ubuntu2.2)

Installed Ubuntu release with current updates applied earlier today:
You are using Ubuntu 11.04 - the Natty Narwhal - released in April 2011 and supported until October 2012.

This same message is also seen in the installation logs. I did not find the message in the system logs following a system restart.
root at SBSDT16:/var/lib/tomcat6# service tomcat6 start
 * Starting Tomcat servlet engine tomcat6     /etc/init.d/tomcat6: 262: cannot create /var/lib/tomcat6/work/catalina.policy: Directory nonexistent

root at SBSDT16:/var/lib/tomcat6# ls -l
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 3 tomcat6 tomcat6 4096 2012-01-11 17:05 common
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root    root      12 2012-01-11 17:05 conf -> /etc/tomcat6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root    root      17 2012-01-11 17:05 logs -> ../../log/tomcat6
drwxr-xr-x 3 tomcat6 tomcat6 4096 2012-01-11 17:05 server
drwxr-xr-x 3 tomcat6 tomcat6 4096 2012-01-11 17:05 shared
drwxrwxr-x 4 tomcat6 tomcat6 4096 2012-01-11 17:05 webapps
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root    root      19 2012-01-11 17:05 work -> ../../cache/tomcat6

The logs and work links are broken. The broken links appear to be due to use of a relative path relative to /var/lib which is, itself, a link.
root at SBSDT16:/var/lib/tomcat6# ls -l /var/lib
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 2011-10-14 10:09 /var/lib -> /home/var-lib

Doing 'ls ../../' lists the contents of /home, not /var.

The tomcat6 installation worked with an earlier release/update version
of Ubuntu. Unfortunately, I cannot supply the release/update information
for either the OS or tomcat6.

I verified the installed package information in Synaptic Package Manager against information found in
http://packages.ubuntu.com/natty/tomcat6 titled Package: tomcat6 (6.0.28-10ubuntu2.2)

An online Google search and search within Ubuntu resulted on one hit
regarding a similar problem. The fix was to uninstall and then re-
install tomcat6. I completely uninstalled tomcat6, manually unlined the
broken links and then re-installed tomcat6 using the Synaptic Package
Manager. The problem persisted and was not fixed.

This problem in no way affects security.

** Affects: tomcat6 (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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Title:
  Tomcat 6 start up fails with unknown dir /var/lib/tomcat6/work

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