While Tomcat 8 is close to be released (Tomcat 8.0.0-RC5 (alpha) is released already), Tomcat 7 was the first Apache Tomcat release to support the Servlet 3.0, JSP 2.2, and EL 2.2 specifications. Please note that Tomcat 7 requires Java 1.6 or better, which shouldn’t be a problem, if you are running OS X 10.5 or 10.6. On OS X 10.7, 10.8 (Mnt Lion), and 10.9 (Mavericks) however, Java is not installed anymore, at least not initially. The easiest way to get Java onto your Mac is probably to open the Terminal app and enter java. You will be asked if you want to install it and OS X takes care of the rest – you would end up with Java 6. Prerequisite: Java On 10.9 (Mavericks), Apple changed this once again, now sending you to Oracle’s Java SE web page, where you can download the JDK, (currently 7 jdk-7u45-macosx-x64.dmg). While at Oracle, I usually also download the Java SE Development Kit 7 Documentation, allowing me to stay away from their site for many months.

The JDK installer package c...