Before you can use GeoServer on your machine, you need to install some required pieces of software. GeoServer is a Java application; therefore, one of the most important things you need to ensure is that a Java virtual machine is working on your machine.

There are two main packages of Java. Depending on what you are planning to do with Java, you may want to install a JDK (Java Development Kit) or JRE (Java Runtime Environment).

The former enables you to compile Java code, while the latter has all you need to run most Java applications. Starting from release 2.0, GeoServer does not need a full JDK installation, and you can go safely with JRE. The JDK is only required if you are planning to write and compile Java code. This is the case if you want to modify the GeoServer source code, to fix code, or add functionalities.

When installing on Windows, the setup configures Tomcat as a system service. This way, it will start when the computer boots without any user action. Are you wondering why do you have to manually start and stop Tomcat on Linux? You do not. As for Windows, the Linux operating system can be configured for an automatic start of programs.

In this section, you will create a script and learn how it works:

1. Download the tomcat file from the Packt site for this book and save it on your machine. You have to move it to the /etc/init.d folder.
2. Open it with the vi editor as follows:

        ~ $ sudo vi /etc/init.d/tomcat 

3. There are some key settings you need to check in this file. The following lines contain the location of JRE and Tomcat. You can modify them according to your environment:

        export JAVA_HOME=/opt/java/jre1.8.0_121 
...

We are well on our way! Go to the GeoServer download page as shown in the following screenshot (http://geoserver.org/download/) and review the installation options available. You will find some different packages for GeoServer. We will use the Web Archive version:

You may select a release from two different branches--Stable and Maintenance. Both of them are built for production purposes, so you can choose whatever you prefer; also, we suggest you select the latest release as it contains all the new features the developer team has just released.

Apart from the Production tab, you may have noted there are two other sections--Development and Archived. Inside the Development section, you will find a nightly build, these releases are not suitable for production as they may be prone to bugs, but it contains all the changes the developers did on the source code...

With Java installed and working, let's install GeoServer. When writing this book, the latest version is 2.11.0. Perform the following steps:

1. Download the OS-independent version from GeoServer's download page. You can point your browser to the URL or use a command-line tool like wget:

      ~ $ wget   
      http://sourceforge.net/projects/geoserver/files/GeoServer/
         2.11.0/geoserver-2.11.0-war.zip

2. Check if Tomcat is not running; if it is, then stop it. Now, unzip the archive you just downloaded in the webapps folder:

        ~ $ sudo unzip -d /opt/apache-tomcat-8.5.13/webapps geoserver
          -2.11.0-war.zip geoserver.war...

The web interface shown at http://localhost:8080/geoserver/web requires you to log in. You can use the default values of admin as username and geoserver as the password. Now you are on the administration console of GeoServer and can change any setting:

We will explore this interface in the next chapter, but we are sure you are wondering if a default password is a good idea for this console. Indeed it is not, and you should change it as soon as possible. We will cover many other security topics in detail in Chapter 10, Securing GeoServer Before Production.

To improve the security settings, perform the following steps:

1. We will start by changing the default password for the administrator. From the GeoServer Web Interface, locate the area on the left and go to the Security section as shown in the following screenshot:
   
2. lick on the Passwords link and locate the area contained in the following screenshot, then click on the Change password link:
   

3. Insert a new password in the form, at least eight characters are required, and confirm it. Then click on the Change Password button:
   

Although you are setting up a development machine, security is always an issue. GeoServer ships with a default administrative password; you logged onto the web interface and changed the default password, then fixed some other issues. You got just a brief taste of the powerful GeoServer web interface. We will cover it in detail...