While working on the OnTrace deployment I noticed the following INFO message in the Tomcat start up logs:
INFO: The Apache Tomcat Native library which allows optimal performance in production environments was not found on the java.library.path
The Apache Tomcat Native library is what tomcat uses for OS level communication and native process handling, using a natively compiled version helps improve performance. There’s more information here, http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/apr.html
To get tomcat to use the native library on RHEL5 here are the steps I took:
yum install apr openssl apr-devel openssl-devel (you'll also need gcc and make installed)
Download the tomcat distribution for the version you’re using, RHEL is currently using 5.5.23,
http://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-5/v5.5.23/bin/apache-tomcat-5.5.23.tar.gz
From the tar extract the native library source from the bin dir:
tar xvzf apache-tomcat-5.5.23.tar.gz cp apache-tomcat-5.5.23/bin/tomcat-native.tar.gz . tar xvzf tomcat-native.tar.gz cd /tomcat-native-1.1.6-src/jni/native ./configure && make && make install
If this completes successfully it should build the native libraries in /usr/local/apr/lib
UPDATE If ./configure is failing with a message unable to find apr than add –with-apr=/usr/local/apr-1-config
add this directory to /usr/share/tomcat5/conf/tomcat5.conf
JAVA_OPTS="-Djava.libaray.path=/usr/lib:/usr/local/apr/lib"
Restart tomcat and check your logs, the message should now be gone.