The software is run in different ways depending on the servlet container you are using:

Tomcat You can use the manager web application to start/stop GeoNetwork. You can also use the startup.* and shutdown.* scripts located into Tomcat’s bin folder (.* means .sh or .bat depending on your OS) but this way you restart all applications you are running, not only GeoNetwork. After installation and before running GeoNetwork you must link it to Tomcat. Jetty If you use the provided container you can use the scripts into GeoNetwork’s bin folder. The scripts are start-geonetwork.* and stop-geonetwork.* and you must be inside the bin folder to run them. You can use these scripts just after installation.