Installing Java / JDK and Tomcat with jpackage

Periodically, when amnesia strikes and I can't recall how I made this work the last 20 or so times I did it before, I get baffled, and start all over from the beginning.

I could be talking about anything, I suppose, but in this case I'm installing Java or the JDK as it's fondly called, and Tomcat and twelve billion dependencies it has on a server, in this case Linux.

Do yourself a favor here that I forgot when I was writing this blog ... see if java is already installed. If it's some antiquated version before 1.5, remove it, unless you know you need it. rpm -qa | grep on java and on jdk to make sure you're not missing anything.

In the past I've used the works and packages of the fine jpackage.org folks. This time is no exception.

First, dig deep in Sun's website until I find a 1.5.0 binary for Linux. I downloaded the Linux RPM in self-extracting file: jdk-1_5_0_14-linux-i586-rpm.bin.

For the uninitiated, it's easiest to use wget to get the binary right onto the server without any intermediate file saving, scp-ing, and the like, but since Sun's URLs are about 5 miles long, they fail wonderfully with the error: blahblahblah "File name too long."

So to make this work, use:
wget -O jdk-1_5_0_14-linux-i586-rpm.bin http://reallylongurlfromsuncopiedandpastedfromtheRPMinselfextractingfilelinkthatendsin/jdk-1_5_0_14-linux-i586-rpm.bin

and then, to our wonder and amazement, it will work. I also often forget this and the reminder is really for me, but if it helps you, all the better.

then, extract the .bin file:
./jdk-1_5_0_14-linux-i586-rpm.bin
which dumps a rpm in your pwd.

then install the RPM, do I need to say how to do this, well okay then:
rpm -i jdk-1_5_0_14-linux-i586.rpm

but then the fun begins, like finding out an older 1.4.2 version was installed already and I didn't delete it before I began this process so installing the rpm gave the message:
[root@server jdk]# rpm -i jdk-1_5_0_14-linux-i586.rpm
package jdk-1.5.0_14-fcs is already installed

and look, rpm -qa | grep jpp gives a whole big list of pkgs, do I need to remove them all? (yes, is the answer you'll see later)

[root@server yum.repos.d]# rpm -qa | grep jpp
bsh-manual-1.3.0-9jpp.1
bsh-javadoc-1.3.0-9jpp.1
tomcat5-servlet-2.4-api-5.5.23-0jpp.3.0.2.el5
xalan-j2-2.7.0-6jpp.1
jakarta-commons-logging-1.0.4-6jpp.1
java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-javadoc-1.4.2.0-40jpp.112
jpackage-utils-1.7.3-1jpp.2.el5
xmlrpc-javadoc-2.0.1-3jpp.1
java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-1.4.2.0-40jpp.112
tomcat5-jsp-2.0-api-5.5.23-0jpp.3.0.2.el5
bsf-2.3.0-11jpp.1
bsh-1.3.0-9jpp.1
jakarta-commons-codec-1.3-7jpp.2
jakarta-commons-httpclient-3.0-7jpp.1
java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-devel-1.4.2.0-40jpp.112
ldapjdk-4.18-2jpp.3.el5
antlr-2.7.6-4jpp.2
junit-3.8.2-3jpp.1
xmlrpc-2.0.1-3jpp.1
java-1.4.2-gcj-compat-src-1.4.2.0-40jpp.112


Okay, so to begin, let's update /etc/yum.repos.d to include the jpackage repository:
in the /etc/yum.repos.d do:
wget http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage17.repo

but do you see the problem ... I don't want 1.7, I want 1.5, so how do I get that?
What I did was create my own jpackage50.repo file containing this:
[jpackage50-generic]
name=JPackage 5.0, generic
baseurl=http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/jpackage/5.0/generic/free/
gpgkey=http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage.asc
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

[jpackage50-generic-nonfree]
name=JPackage (non-free), generic
baseurl=http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/jpackage/5.0/generic/non-free/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://www.jpackage.org/jpackage.asc
enabled=1

and now I'll go hunting to remove the jpps:
deleted all the jpp rpms except these:
bsh-manual-1.3.0-9jpp.1
bsh-javadoc-1.3.0-9jpp.1
jpackage-utils-1.7.3-1jpp.2.el5
xmlrpc-javadoc-2.0.1-3jpp.1

now reinstall jdk:
rpm -ev jdk-1.5.0_14-fcs
rpm -iv jdk-1.5.0_14-fcs
install java-compat from jpp:
rpm -iv java-1.5.0-sun-compat-1.5.0.14-1jpp.src.rpm
which seemed to work, but rpm isn't listed with rpm -qa | grep java

but what did work:
yum install java-1.5.0-sun-compat-1.5.0.14-1jpp
and now it's in the rpm list. yay!
and java -version shows the new version - yay yay!
[root@quinoa jdk]# java -version
java version "1.5.0_14"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_14-b03)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_14-b03, mixed mode, sharing)

figured out I need tomcat 5.5, not 6.0, and a handy
yum list *tomcat*
gave me a list of all tomcat options, giving me a choice between tomcat5 (which was really 5.5.23) and tomcat6.
ran
yum install tomcat5
and away it went, installing the 37 dependencies and tomcat5 from jpackage.
it ended with this error:
/usr/bin/build-jar-repository: error: Could not find xml-commons-apis Java extension for this JVM
/usr/bin/build-jar-repository: error: Some specified jars were not found for this jvm

and when I started tomcat I got the same error. So I installed xml-commons-apis
yum install xml-commons-apis
which inconveniently uninstalled the jdk, why, I'm not sure, so I installed it back again from the rpm I got from sun.
restarting tomcat didn't get that error this time.

Credits to:
Sun
jpackage.org
Bart Busschotts