I want run tomcat9 with a user different from the default, and searching the web, I found out that I can configure this in the file /etc/default/tomcat
. In this file, I change the lines with TOMCAT9-USER
and TOMCAT9_GROUP
and change to the desired user and group I wish tomcat9 was running under. After that, I stop tomcat, and start again (I've trie restart too), but when I run ps -ef
, tomcat still is displayed running under user tomcat. What I am doing wrong here? Is there any other file I need modify?

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3 Answers
I find the problem. With ubuntu, apparently the file /etc/default/tomcat9
is not used; I managed to change the configuration I wanted with the command: systemctl edit --full tomcat9.service
, which edits the file /etc/systemd/system/tomcat9.service
.

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Try using service.bat or service.sh to set the user which the tomcat process need to run as.
Try to follow the below Tomcat 9 documentation
https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/windows-service-howto.html

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[Originally this answer appeared under How do I run Tomcat 9 as a different user, which is a duplicate of this question]
The Tomcat 9 packages based on Debian 10 use SystemD to run. Therefore you need to run:
sudo systemctl edit tomcat9.service
(or create a file named /etc/systemd/system/tomcat9.service.d/override.conf
) and type:
[Service]
User=your_user
Group=your_group
in the editor that appears. Check the systemd.exec manual for more options or see the vendor supplied unit file (/lib/systemd/system/tomcat9.service
).
When you restart your server, it will use the new settings.

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