tomcat.conf

description "Tomcat Server"

  start on runlevel [2345]
  stop on runlevel [!2345]
  respawn
  respawn limit 10 5

  # run as non privileged user 
  # add user with this command:
  ## adduser --system --ingroup www-data --home /opt/apache-tomcat apache-tomcat
  # Ubuntu 12.04: (use 'exec sudo -u apache-tomcat' when using 10.04)
  setuid apache-tomcat
  setgid www-data

  # adapt paths:
  env JAVA_HOME=/opt/java
  env CATALINA_HOME=/opt/apache-tomcat

  # adapt java options to suit your needs:
  env JAVA_OPTS="-Djava.awt.headless=true -Xms512M -Xmx1024M -server -XX:+UseParallelGC"

  exec $CATALINA_HOME/bin/catalina.sh run

  # cleanup temp directory after stop
  post-stop script 
    rm -rf $CATALINA_HOME/temp/*
  end script

1 Drop this into /etc/init on an ubuntu instance
2 Run the adduser command in the comments (note that it assumes tomcat is installed in /opt/apache-tomcat)
3 Ensure CATALINA_HOME is correct (same location as the previous step's home)
4 Ensure JAVA_HOME is correct (might be /usr/lib/java/... if you're using OpenJDK)