Bug#886725: tomcat8: ownership of directory /var/lib/tomcat8 had been set to 'root:root'

[Fuwei Chin]

Package: tomcat8
Version: 8.5.14-1+deb9u2
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

My call to the 'tomcat8' you is to change the ownership of directory /var/lib/tomcat8 from 'root:root' to 'tomcat8:tomcat8'.

I have a tomcat8 installed in Debian-based OS through aptitude.

The $HOME of user tomcat8, according to /etc/passwd, is /var/lib/tomcat8. the default $CATALINA_BASE, described by /etc/init.d/tomcat8, is also /var/lib/tomcat8.
For what the ownership of directory /var/lib/tomcat8 had been set to 'root:root'? that means I cannot mkdir under neither $HOME nor $CATALINA_BASE.

Software packages to OS is what web apps to Tomcat, a software package can mkdir under user's home dir, but a web app cannot mkdir under tomcat user's home dir due to lacking of permission, such that a webapp developer cannot find a proper location to put their generated data.


-- System Information:
Distributor ID:	Raspbian
Description:	Raspbian GNU/Linux 9.1 (stretch)
Release:	9.1
Codename:	stretch
Architecture: armv7l

Kernel: Linux 4.9.41-v7+ (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages tomcat8 depends on:
ii  adduser                3.115
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.61
ii  lsb-base               9.20161125+rpi1
ii  tomcat8-common         8.5.14-1+deb9u2
ii  ucf                    3.0036

Versions of packages tomcat8 recommends:
ii  authbind       2.1.2
ii  libtcnative-1  1.2.12-2

Versions of packages tomcat8 suggests:
ii  tomcat8-admin     8.5.14-1+deb9u2
pn  tomcat8-docs      <none>
pn  tomcat8-examples  <none>
pn  tomcat8-user      <none>

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/tomcat8/catalina.properties changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat8/logging.properties changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat8/server.xml changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat8/tomcat-users.xml changed [not included]
/etc/tomcat8/web.xml changed [not included]

-- debconf information:
  tomcat8/groupname: tomcat8
  tomcat8/username: tomcat8
  tomcat8/javaopts: -Djava.awt.headless=true -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC