Starting and Stopping Lucee on Linux

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In a Linux environment, Lucee can be controlled by using the provided lucee_ctl script, which is configured by the installer according to your choices.

The control script is created in the root of your Lucee installation directory (usually /opt/lucee/lucee_ctl by default). If you opted to have Lucee start at boot time, the installer will also register this as a system service.

Permissions

Root-level privileges are required to use the lucee_ctl script. This means you have to either be logged in directly as root, su to root, or sudo to root.

You can use the bundled Tomcat shell scripts (startup.sh, shutdown.sh and catalina.sh), but make sure you are running as the correct user, otherwise it can cause permission problems. It's best to use lucee_ctl.

Using systemd (Modern Linux - Recommended)

Note: systemd support was added in Lucee Installer 7.0.1 and 6.2.4. Earlier versions use the legacy SysVinit method.

All modern Linux distributions (RHEL/CentOS 7+, Debian 8+, Ubuntu 15.04+, Arch, Fedora, AlmaLinux, etc.) use systemd as their init system. When you install Lucee with --startatboot true, the installer automatically creates a systemd service file.

Starting and Stopping with systemctl

# Start Lucee
sudo systemctl start lucee_ctl

# Stop Lucee
sudo systemctl stop lucee_ctl

# Restart Lucee
sudo systemctl restart lucee_ctl

# Check status
sudo systemctl status lucee_ctl

# View logs
sudo journalctl -u lucee_ctl

Enable/Disable Auto-Start at Boot

# Enable auto-start at boot
sudo systemctl enable lucee_ctl

# Disable auto-start at boot
sudo systemctl disable lucee_ctl

Custom Service Names

If you installed Lucee with a custom service name (using --servicename), use that name instead:

sudo systemctl start my_app_ctl
sudo systemctl status my_app_ctl

This is useful when running multiple Lucee instances on the same server.

The systemd Service File

The systemd service file is created at /etc/systemd/system/lucee_ctl.service (or /etc/systemd/system/{servicename}_ctl.service for custom names). You can view it with:

cat /etc/systemd/system/lucee_ctl.service

Using the lucee_ctl Script Directly

You can also control Lucee directly using the lucee_ctl script:

sudo /opt/lucee/lucee_ctl start
sudo /opt/lucee/lucee_ctl stop
sudo /opt/lucee/lucee_ctl restart
sudo /opt/lucee/lucee_ctl status
sudo /opt/lucee/lucee_ctl forcequit

Warning: If you have Lucee registered as a systemd service, you should use systemctl commands instead of calling lucee_ctl directly. Starting or stopping Lucee outside of systemd can cause systemd to lose track of the process, leading to issues like:

  • systemctl status showing incorrect state
  • systemctl start failing because Lucee is already running (but systemd doesn't know)
  • PID file ownership conflicts

If you get into this state, stop Lucee with sudo /opt/lucee/lucee_ctl stop, then use systemctl start lucee_ctl to let systemd manage it properly.

Legacy Init Systems (SysVinit)

On older Linux systems that don't use systemd, the installer falls back to the legacy SysVinit method, copying the script to /etc/init.d/.

Using the service command

sudo service lucee_ctl start
sudo service lucee_ctl stop
sudo service lucee_ctl restart

This method is only used on systems without systemd (e.g., older RHEL 6, Debian 7, etc.).

See also