Both Ubuntu and Debian repositories have not been updated since version 8.5.39 while there have been serious security and bug fixes.

So i decided to create for both Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04 a PPA launchpad where you can install the latest version as of today – Apache Tomcat 8.5.59

Simply add my launchpad:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ttyrnpuu/tomcat
sudo apt-get update

Or if you don´t already have tomcat8 installed just run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ttyrnpuu/tomcat
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y tomcat8