If you want to start tomcat from maven you just simply run:

1

mvn tomcat:run

if you want to run it in debug mode, in order to be able to remote debug it, set the MAVEN_OPTS to:

1

export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xdebug -Xnoagent -Djava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=9000"

Connect from Eclipse

To connect to this process from eclipse/sts open the debug/debug configurations dialog, and choose: Remote Java Application (even if it can be misleading as its running on localhost)