Bug#775505: tomcat7: NullPointerException with catalina*.jar from package

[Christian Renner]

Package: tomcat7
Version: 7.0.56-1~bpo70+2
Severity: important
Tags: patch

Dear Maintainer,

When using the catalina*.jar's provided by the debian package (in /usr/share/tomcat7/lib/) our tomcat dies with "java.lang.NullPointerException".
When I replace the jar's with the jar's provided by the original uptstream tomcat package (https://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-7/v7.0.56/bin/apache-tomcat-7.0.56.tar.gz) tomcat starts normally as expected.

Same problem has been reportet in numerous places, e.g.: https://forums.alfresco.com/comment/145885#comment-145885

Regards
Christian

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.8
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=UTF-8 (charmap=locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages tomcat7 depends on:
ii  adduser                3.113+nmu3
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.49
ii  tomcat7-common         7.0.56-1~bpo70+2
ii  ucf                    3.0025+nmu3

Versions of packages tomcat7 recommends:
ii  authbind  2.1.1

Versions of packages tomcat7 suggests:
pn  libtcnative-1     <none>
pn  tomcat7-admin     <none>
pn  tomcat7-docs      <none>
pn  tomcat7-examples  <none>
pn  tomcat7-user      <none>

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/init.d/tomcat7 changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat7/catalina.properties changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat7/context.xml changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat7/server.xml changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat7/web.xml changed [not included]

-- debconf information:
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
	LANGUAGE = "en_US:en",
	LC_ALL = (unset),
	LC_CTYPE = "UTF-8",
	LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
  tomcat7/groupname: tomcat7
  tomcat7/username: tomcat7
  tomcat7/javaopts: -Djava.awt.headless=true -Xmx128m -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC