How to Install JAVA 8 (JDK 8u66) on CentOS/RHEL and Fedora

After a long wait, finally Java SE Development Kit 8 is available to download. JDK 8 has been released on Mar,18 2014 for general availability with the many featured enhancements. You can find all the enhancements in JDK 8 here.

This article will help you to Install JAVA 8 (JDK 8u66) or update on your system. Read instruction carefully for downloading java from Linux command line. To Install Java 8 in Ubuntu and LinuxMint read This Article.

Downloading Latest Java Archive

Download latest Java SE Development Kit 8 release from its official download page or use following commands to download from shell.

For 64Bit

# cd /opt/
# wget --no-cookies --no-check-certificate --header "Cookie: gpw_e24=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oracle.com%2F; oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie" "http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u66-b17/jdk-8u66-linux-x64.tar.gz"

# tar xzf jdk-8u66-linux-x64.tar.gz

For 32Bit

# cd /opt/
# wget --no-cookies --no-check-certificate --header "Cookie: gpw_e24=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oracle.com%2F; oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie" "http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/8u66-b17/jdk-8u66-linux-i586.tar.gz"

# tar xzf jdk-8u66-linux-i586.tar.gz

Install Java with Alternatives

After extracting archive file use alternatives command to install it. alternatives command is available in chkconfig package.

# cd /opt/jdk1.8.0_66/
# alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /opt/jdk1.8.0_66/bin/java 2
# alternatives --config java


There are 3 programs which provide 'java'.

  Selection    Command
-----------------------------------------------
*  1           /opt/jdk1.7.0_71/bin/java
 + 2           /opt/jdk1.8.0_45/bin/java
   3           /opt/jdk1.8.0_51/bin/java
   4           /opt/jdk1.8.0_66/bin/java

Enter to keep the current selection[+], or type selection number: 4

At this point JAVA 8 has been successfully installed on your system. We also recommend to setup javac and jar commands path using alternatives

# alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /opt/jdk1.8.0_66/bin/jar 2
# alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /opt/jdk1.8.0_66/bin/javac 2
# alternatives --set jar /opt/jdk1.8.0_66/bin/jar
# alternatives --set javac /opt/jdk1.8.0_66/bin/javac

Check Installed Java Version

Check the installed Java version on your system using following command.

root@hackthesec~# java -version

java version "1.8.0_66"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_66-b17)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.66-b17, mixed mode)

Configuring Environment Variables

Most of Java based application’s uses environment variables to work. Set the Java environment variables using following commands

Setup JAVA_HOME Variable

# export JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.8.0_66

Setup JRE_HOME Variable

# export JRE_HOME=/opt/jdk1.8.0_66/jre

Setup PATH Variable

# export PATH=$PATH:/opt/jdk1.8.0_66/bin:/opt/jdk1.8.0_66/jre/bin

Also put all above environment variables in /etc/environment file for auto loading on system boot.

How to Install JAVA 8 (JDK 8u66) on CentOS/RHEL and Fedora