Tomcat 6 Heap Size - Is this correct?

catalina.out, heap-memory, java, redhat, tomcat6

Solution

Best practice is to put the setting of environment variables in a file named `setenv.sh`/`.bat` in the bin folder.

The `catalina.sh` script has logic to call into this script, if it exists.

The reason why this is recommended is because it makes setting of environment variables needed for your installation portable: you can easily copy `setenv.sh` to other Tomcat installations, you can upgrade Tomcat to a newer version (which might overwrite `catalina.sh`) but still have your existing `setenv.sh`.

An example on how to set the heap size inside `setenv.sh`:

export JAVA_OPTS='-Xmx784M` 

Problem

I am running multiple tomcats on a Red Hat box and I would like to configure separate heap size for each of them (some instances use more memory). Can I set the heap size min/max bt entering the following into the catalina.sh file: CATALINA_OPTS="-Xms64m -Xmx256m" Do I need add 'export'? i.e. export CATALINA_OPTS="-Xms64m -Xmx256m"

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