tomcat and java on Linux

[Brian Nice]

These are probably really simple questions, but i am new to linux. I downloaded the jdk1.4.1_02 and tomcat and installed them on the Linux box as root.
When Tomcat runs, does it need to run as the root user, and if so how can i get it to start up automatically if someone restarts the server? When the server restarts, does it always restart as the root user? If so, do my environment variables such as JAVA_HOME, have to be set from the root user point of view (ie when logged in as root) so Tomcat can see them?
Sorry for the confusion, hopefully someone can set me straight.
Thanks
Brian

[Tim Holloway]

No, Tomcat can run as a non-root user and it runs as user "tomcat" on my servers.
There had been a distro of Tomcat in RPM form which installed an /etc/init.d tomcat3 (or 4) script and created this user account. Unfortunately, I don't think it's been updated lately.