Fedora Core 9 Installation problem with Tomcat not starting the Novell Service Desk application due to a java error in the catalina.out references the TimeZone or NSTimeZone or NSTimeZone.java:920

Fedora Core 9 Installation : Tomcat : problem with starting the Novell Service Desk application due to a java error in the catalina.out referencing the TimeZone... Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at com.webobjects.foundation.NSTimeZone.systemTimeZone(NSTimeZone.java:920) at com.webobjects.foundation.NSLog$PrintStreamLogger.(NSLog.java:1643)

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at com.webobjects.foundation.NSTimeZone.systemTimeZone(NSTimeZone.java:920) at com.webobjects.foundation.NSLog$PrintStreamLogger.(NSLog.java:1643)

Looking at the /etc/sysconfig/clock file it is defined as: ZONE="America/Toronto" Once this was changed to "US/Eastern" the problem went away after reboot. This was the only change made.

This error also can be caused by using the IBM jre or java instead of the Oracle JDK JVM.  The JDK must be available and pointed to so step one is to check what is being pointed to:

Edit the Tomcat/Bin/Catalina.sh and look for the JAVA_HOME variable.  Determine what it has been set to.  This line should be switched, see the installation guides for more detailed instructions. 

To install the proper JDK via the link here, click the "Download JDK" button: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html