Could not load the Tomcat server configuration

I've just been encountering a very similar issue in Ubuntu while trying to get Eclipse Mars and Tomcat7 integrated because Eclipse was expecting the tomcat configuration files etc to be all in the same location, and with the necessary permissions to be able to change those files.

The following instructions from this blog article helped me in the end:

cd /usr/share/tomcat7sudo ln -s /var/lib/tomcat7/conf confsudo ln -s /var/log/tomcat7 logsudo ln -s /etc/tomcat7/policy.d/03catalina.policy conf/catalina.policysudo chmod -R a+rwx /usr/share/tomcat7/conf

I've just solved this exact problem on my Ubuntu 14.04 with Eclipse Mars 2.

This could happen when Eclipse is not finding Tomcat's configuration files where they are expected to be. This place is in

$eclipse_workspace_folder/$version_of_your_tomcat_server_at_localhost/

(by default if you didn't changed server's name). So you have to copy all the files under your $tomcat_installation_folder/conf/* to the workspace server's folder.

But it was easier to just remove the server from your server list and add it again. Eclipse will automatically recreate all these files again into the proper folders. Like in the picture below:

In my case I've downloaded tomcat-8.0.35 from the website, so the configuration files needed are in /opt/apache-tomcat-8.0.35/conf/ filesystem.

Just delete the desired server from the Servers view (Window -> Show View -> Servers) and then go to Window -> Preferences -> Server -> Runtime Environment -> Add and add the server again.

You can install tomcat7 in ~/tomcat7 instead of /usr/share/tomcat7.

1. Close Eclipse.
2. Delete org.eclipse.wst.server.core.prefs and org.eclipse.jst.server.tomcat.core.prefs in {workspace-directory}/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings.
3. Launch Eclipse.
4. Go to Window->Show View->Other... and choose the Servers.
5. Select Tomcat v7.0 Server from the server type and press Next.
6. Enter /home/user/tomcat7 (not /usr/share/tomcat7) into the "Tomcat installation directory" and press Download.
7. Wait a few minutes and press Finish.

tomcat7 worked correctly with Eclipse 4.4 on my Ubuntu 15.04 in this way.