Linux : Setting up Raspberry Pi as a Java application server

This page last changed on Oct 24, 2013 by admin.

Preparing the SD card

• download Raspbian Wheezy (hard float) image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

• put sd card in a linux machine

• check where it is mounted with df -h or with GParted

• unmount the sd card with umount <mount-point>

• copy the image to the card with

  sudo dd bs=4M if=<image file> of=/dev/sdb
  

  Note: device name without partition number!

Booting for the first time

Insert the SD card into the Pi and power it on. The OS will start up with a config utility when it is run for the first time. I did the following:

• enabled SSH
• boot into console
• set correct timezone
• expand filesystem
• set hostname
• decrease amount of memory for the GPU to 16M

Reboot after this.

Additional setup

• update to the latest and greatest (and go get a coffee): sudo apt-get update upgrade
• install vim: sudo apt-get install vim
• set fixed IP number, see http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-ubuntu-linux-convert-dhcp-network-configuration-to-static-ip-configuration.html

Setup Java 7 SDK

The latest Raspbian images come with Java 7 pre-installed. We only need to set JAVA_HOME properly in /etc/default/tomcat7

Install Tomcat 7

• sudo apt-get install tomcat7
• download tomcat distribution and unpack it in /opt
• install tomcat to run as a service
• adjust JVM memory configuration in catalina.sh: JAVA_OPTS=-Xmx256M