title: How to run tomcat as root user - and why tomcat usuallu run under own user?
body: <p>Good day, </p>
  
  <p>I try to configure Hippo cms (tomcat-based application) to run on our own test/dev server.</p>
  
  <p>I follow Hippo's manual page <a href="https://www.onehippo.org/library/enterprise/installation-and-configuration/linux-installation-manual.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.onehippo.org/library/enterprise/installation-and-configuration/linux-installation-manual.html</a> and on our sandbox server, which is ubuntu, everything works out of the box as described - great! As per manual, I run tomcat as a cms user. The manual prescribes to install tomcat under /usr/local/tomcat, then  create a new user, "cms" with home folder in /opt/cms and to create secondary tomcat configuration in there, under "tomcat" folder just to run and instance of Tomcat specific for Hippo cms. Tomcat runs in /opt/cms/tomcat directory. </p>
  
  <p>Now, we use vargant in dev, and that is uses RedHat, and all the processes should run as root (company rule). I follow the same manual to the letter, installing tomcat in /usr/loca/ and configure secondary tomcat to run in /opt/cms/tomcat as per manual, except this time I don't create a new user - the folder is owned by root.
  I use the same /etc/init.d/cms script to start services in both cases, however on RHL tomcat starts from /usr/local/tomcat and it doesn't pick up Hippo webapps that are deployed under /opt/cms/tomcat.</p>
  
  <p>I know it's difficult to diagnose the proble from such a sketchy description alone, but perhaps someone could help me with the following mysteries:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Why is it always recommended to run tomcat under its own user? </li>
  <li>How to configure tomcat to run under root user and know what the trick is to make tomcat run as root?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Many thanks,
  Nestor </p>