This bug is related to bug 38949 (Tomcat 4.1.24-r1 does not set endorsed libs directory). Setting the JAVA_ENDORSED_LIBS directory like described in bug 38949 in the /opt/tomcat/bin/setclasspath.sh file to the correct /opt/tomcat/common/endorsed directory leads to Tomcat crashing on start with the the following exception: org.apache.commons.logging.LogConfigurationException: java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.newFactory(LogFactory.java:558) at org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.getFactory(LogFactory.java:355) at org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.getLog(LogFactory.java:409) at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.<init>(Digester.java:352) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.createStartDigester(Catalina.java:280) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:441) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.execute(Catalina.java:400) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.process(Catalina.java:180) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:203) Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.newFactory(LogFactory.java:543) ... 12 more (re)moving the file "commons-logging-api.jar" out of the /opt/tomcat/common/endorsed directory "solves" the problem and Tomcat starts normally. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Set the JAVA_ENDORSED_LIBS variable in /opt/tomcat/bin/setclasspath.sh 2. Start Tomcat Actual Results: Tomcat fails with an exception. Expected Results: Start normally. Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.11 Portage 2.0.49-r20 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.1, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.4.22-gentoo-test-r0) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.22-gentoo-test-r0 i686 Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 - M CPU 2.00GHz ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O3 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /opt/tomcat/conf /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium3 -O3 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X alsa apm arts avi berkdb crypt cups encode esd foomaticdb gdbm gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 imlib jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mpeg mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline sdl slang spell ssl svga tcpd truetype x86 xml2 xmms xv zlib"
Setting CATALINA_OPTS="-Dorg.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory=org.apache.commons.logging.impl.LogFactoryImpl" in /opt/conf.d/tomcat makes tomcat start successfully without the exception. Additional Information on commons-logging can be found here: http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/logging/api/org/apache/commons/logging/package-summary.html
Fixed in the latest 4.1.29 and 5.0x
