Install Liferay Portal 6.2 on Tomcat 8.5 for Windows

This article describes how to set up Liferay Portal 6.2 on Tomcat 8.5 server using Windows.

Resolution

1. ) Download Necessary Files:

Liferay-portal-6.2-ee-sp20-20170717160924965.war
Liferay-portal-dependencies-6.2-ee-sp20
liferay-portal-6.2-ee-sp20(with Tomcat 7.0.62 as default server in bundle)
tomcat-8.5.45

Files can be found at the Help Center Downloads Page.

2. ) Setup Dependency Jars:

Create a folder in Tomcat 8.5 named ext in %CATALINA_HOME%/lib
Unzip the Liferay Dependencies and copy the .jar files to %CATALINA_HOME%/lib/ext in Tomcat 8.5
Download the support-tomcat.jar file from HERE and copy it into %CATALINA_HOME%/lib/ext directory in Tomcat 8.5
Download a few third party .jar files and place these .jar files into %CATALINA_HOME%/lib/ext:

jta.jar
mail.jar
persistence.jar
activation.jar
ccpp.jar
jms.jar
jutf7.jar
junit.jar

Note: Because the links to download these .jar files are out of date, use the .jar file in Portal 6.2.: liferay-portal-6.2-ee-sp20\tomcat-7.0.62\lib\ext

3. ) Tomcat configuration:

Create a setenv.bat (Windows) in the %CATALINA_HOME%/bin directory in Tomcat 8.5. Populate it with the following contents:

if exist "%CATALINA_HOME%/jre@java.version@/win" (
      if not "%JAVA_HOME%" == "" (
          set JAVA_HOME=
      )

      set "JRE_HOME=%CATALINA_HOME%/jre@java.version@/win"
  )

  set "CATALINA_OPTS=%CATALINA_OPTS% -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Dorg.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.ENABLE_CLEAR_REFERENCES=false -Duser.timezone=GMT -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m"

Create the directory %CATALINA_HOME%/conf/Catalina/localhost in Tomcat 8.5
Create ROOT.xml in %CATALINA_HOME%/conf/Catalina/localhost
Edit ROOT.xml and add the following:

<Context path="" crossContext="true">

<!-- JAAS -->

<!--<Realm
 classNjame="org.apache.catalina.realm.JAASRealm"
 appName="PortalRealm"
 userClassNames="com.liferay.portal.kernel.security.jaas.PortalPrincipal"
 roleClassNames="com.liferay.portal.kernel.security.jaas.PortalRole"
 />-->

<!--
 Uncomment the following to disable persistent sessions across reboots.
 -->

<!--<Manager pathname="" />-->

<!--
 Uncomment the following to not use sessions. See the property
 "session.disabled" in portal.properties.
 -->

<!--<Manager className="com.liferay.support.tomcat.session.SessionLessManagerBase" />-->
</Context>

Open %CATALINA_HOME%/conf/catalina.properties and replace the line:

 common.loader=${catalina.base}/lib,${catalina.base}/lib/*.jar,${catalina.home}/lib,${catalina.home}/lib/*.jar

with

  common.loader=${catalina.base}/lib,${catalina.base}/lib/*.jar,${catalina.home}/lib,${catalina.home}/lib/*.jar,${catalina.home}/lib/ext,${catalina.home}/lib/ext/*.jar

Edit %CATALINA_HOME%/conf/server.xml and add the attribute URIEncoding="UTF-8" where you see redirectPort=8443, in the definition of your connectors (HTTP and AJP) as below:

<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
 connectionTimeout="20000"
 redirectPort="8443" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>

<Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>

Lastly, if you see a support-catalina.jar in your %CATALINA_HOME%/webapps directory, delete it.

4. ) Deploy Liferay

Delete the contents of %CATALINA_HOME%/webapps/ROOT. Extract the Liferay .war file to %CATALINA_HOME%/webapps/ROOT
Start Tomcat by executing %CATALINA_HOME%/bin/startup.bat

Result: Liferay Portal 6.2 can be installed on Tomcat 8.5 and the portal can be started successfully.