What are the tomcat catalina_opts and java_opts variables used for?

vaquitasos

Environment Variables: CATALINA_OPTS & JAVA_OPTS
Settings: Optional.

From Apache Tomcat documentation:
https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/RUNNING.txt

One frequently used variable is CATALINA_OPTS. It allows specification of
additional options for the java command that starts Tomcat.

See the Java documentation for the options that affect the Java Runtime
Environment.

See the "System Properties" page in the Tomcat Configuration Reference for
the system properties that are specific to Tomcat.

A similar variable is JAVA_OPTS. It is used less frequently. It allows
specification of options that are used both to start and to stop Tomcat as well
as for other commands.

Note: Do not use JAVA_OPTS to specify memory limits. You do not need much
memory for a small process that is used to stop Tomcat. Those settings
belong to CATALINA_OPTS.