Download a distribution archive of the latest TomEE release from the Downloads page. If you are not sure which one to use, take apache-tomee-webprofile-x.y.z.zip.
If you want to try out the latest development snapshot (e.g. to test a bugfix which has not yet been released), then download an archive directly from the Apache Maven Snapshots Repository instead.
The instructions on this page work with the webprofile distribution but apply to all TomEE distributions (webprofile, jaxrs or plus). If you work with the jaxrs or plus distribution, simply replace the name where appropriate.
Unpack the archive in any directory. The top-level directory of the unpacked archive is called apache-tomee-webprofile-x.y.z/. We refer to this directory as $CATALINA_HOME in the following.
To start TomEE as a background process, invoke
$CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
To start TomEE in foreground, invoke
$CATALINA_HOME/bin/catalina.sh run
When running TomEE in foreground, it will print all log messages to the console.
When running TomEE in background, it will only print a couple of environment variables. The log messages go to a file
$CATALINA_HOME/logs/catalina.out
To stop TomEE, invoke
$CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
If you started TomEE in foreground via catalina.sh run, it is safe to simply type Ctrl-C.