frome http://askubuntu.com/questions/339169/how-to-install-tomcat-7-0-42-on-ubuntu-12-04-3-lts

Note: visit this question if you want to know why it‘s not in the repositories: Why don‘t the Ubuntu repositories have the latest versions of software?

Prerequisite: you need to have Java installed, and we need its path. Java is usually installed under /usr/lib/jvm. Once you have installed Java, you can run the command update-alternatives --config java to show you the exact path; look at the first entry (the one with a * next to it. You can hit Enter to exit this screen). We only need the directory after /jvm/. On my machine, the directory was /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/. This answer will assume that this is the Java directory, but you should change the commands accordingly.

1. wget http://mirror.atlanticmetro.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-7/v7.0.42/bin/apache-tomcat-7.0.42.tar.gz

   • This will download Tomcat 7.0.42 to your current directory.

2. tar xzvf apache-tomcat-7.0.42.tar.gz

   • This will extract the files.

3. sudo mv apache-tomcat-7.0.42 /usr/local

   • This moves Tomcat to /usr/local. You can choose any path you want. The remaining commands will assume you have used this path.

4. nano ~/.bashrc - this will open up a text editor. Go to the end of the file (Alt+/) and add the following two lines:

   export CATALINA_HOME=/usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.42export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/

   Remember: this was the path to my Java. Change it to your installed Java.

5. . ~/.bashrc

   • This will apply the changes we made.

6. sudo $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh - you should see something like this:

   Using CATALINA_BASE:   /usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.42Using CATALINA_HOME:   /usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.42Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.42/tempUsing JRE_HOME:        /usrUsing CLASSPATH:       /usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.42/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/local/apache-tomcat-7.0.42/bin/tomcat-juli.jar

   And no errors.

You‘re done. Point your browser to http://localhost:8080 and you should see the Tomcat page: