Host Your Own draw.io - Visio style diagram maker - On Windows 🌱

What is Draw.io?

draw.io is a configurable diagramming/whiteboarding visualization application. -https://github.com/jgraph/drawio

Downloads and Pre-requisites

  1. Download OpenJDK Download
  2. Download Apache Tomcat Download
  3. Download the latest draw.io .war file Download
  4. Extract the OpenJDK .zip archive
  5. Copy the extracted OpenJDK files to C:\Program Files\OpenJDK
  6. Click the Start button and search Control Panel
  7. Navigate to System > Advanced System Settings
  8. Click the Environment Variables button
  9. Under System Variables, click New
  10. In the Variable Name field enter JAVA_HOME
  11. In the Variable Value field enter the full path to C:\Program Files\OpenJDK
  12. Click OK to close all the open dialog windows

Installing Tomcat

  1. Double click the Apache Tomcat installer executable
  2. Click Next and then I Agree
  3. On the Choose Components screen, uncheck everything except Core, Service Startup and Native > Click Next
  4. Set the port to 8000 and Service Name > Click Next
  5. At the Java Virtual Machine screen, input C:\Program Files\OpenJDK > Click Next
  6. Verify the install location > Click Install
  7. After the installation completes click Finish
  8. Open a web browser and navigate to http://DNSorIP:8000
  9. An Apache Tomcat splash screen should display with the version of Tomcat that is currently running

Installing draw.io

  1. Copy the draw.war file downloaded earlier to the Apache Tomcat/webapps directory
  2. Within a few moments Apache Tomcat should see the .war file and extract it to a /draw sub-directory
    1. If this doesn't occur automatically, try right clicking the Start button > Run > services.msc and restarting the Apache Tomcat service
  3. Once the .war file has extracted itself to a directory, open a web browser and navigate to http://DNSorIP:8000/draw

Optional Steps

  1. To remove the need to navigate to /draw, navigate to the Apache Tomcat/webapps directory in Explorer
  2. Delete the ROOT directory if it exists
  3. Rename the draw directory ROOT
  4. Open a web browser and navigate to http://DNS-or-IP:8000/ to reach Draw.io