Q:

How to use external Tomcat server in Netbeans on Linux?

I am trying to use the external tomcat server installed on my machine (Ubuntu 11.10) and I a going through the motions of adding a new server to Netbeans, in the Server Location field I enter the /usr/share/tomcat6 directory but it gives an error:
The specified Server Location (Catalina Home) folder is not valid

I have searched Google, used the Netbeans wiki, and have searched here also but nothing seems to be able to get me past this point.

A:

Yes, Netbeans does support external Tomcat installations.  It does so without any problems on Windows, but there are a few wrinkles if you want to do it on Linux - with Ubuntu-based distributions anyway.
I wrote up my experiences here:
http://www.peredur.net/2011/12/linux-tomcat-and-netbeans/
Hopefully, that should help.

