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I've installed a version of Java. How can we set the $JAVA_HOME environment variable correctly?

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up vote 272 down vote accepted

You can set your JAVA_HOME in /etc/profile as Petronilla Escarabajo suggests. But the preferred location for JAVA_HOME or any system variable is /etc/environment.

Open /etc/environment in any text editor like nano or gedit and add the following line:

JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/open-jdk"

(java path could be different)

Use source to load the variables, by running this command:

source /etc/environment

Then check the variable, by running this command:

echo $JAVA_HOME

Update

Usually most linux systems source /etc/environment by default. If your system doesn't do that add the following line to ~/.bashrc (Thanks @pje)

source /etc/environment
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4  
I'm getting: JDK Required: 'tools.jar' seems to be not in IDEA classpath. Please ensure JAVA_HOME points to JDK rather than JRE. – anon58192932 Mar 21 '14 at 21:31
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@advocate - You should probably post your own question for that. But the clue is in the message; you need to point at a JDK not a JRE. – David Edwards Mar 28 '14 at 14:57
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When i tried to run Android Studio (that has IntelliJ IDEA as a base), i had an error message very similar to @advocate's: "'tools.jar' seems to be not in Android Studio classpath." After fiddling a lot with JAVA_HOME without success, i decided to take a look at studio.sh, the shellscript that starts Android Studio. As a wild guess, i set JDK_HOME to the same value expected for JAVA_HOME, and voila! It installed without great problems. – Hilton Fernandes Mar 7 '15 at 23:20
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For those doing software development, don't put your JAVA_HOME in /etc/environment unless you want to reboot everytime you switch JDK versions. – HDave Sep 20 '16 at 19:03
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As others have pointed out, this doesn't stick between terminal sessions. What I did to address this is just added the line source /etc/environment to the top of my bash config file ~/.bashrc so that it loads all my environment settings on startup. Working for me so far. – pje Mar 11 '17 at 22:31
up vote 58 down vote

To set JAVA_HOME environment variable, do the following:

  1. Launch Terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard.
  2. Enter the following command:
    $ gksudo gedit /etc/environment
  3. Depending on where you installed your Java, you will need to provide the full path. For this example, I installed Oracle JDK 7 in the /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle directory.
    Scroll to the end of the file and enter the following:
    JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle
    export JAVA_HOME
  4. Save your file and exit gedit.
  5. Lastly, reload the system PATH with the following command:
    $ . /etc/environment

The above method will save you the hassle in having to run the commands every time you log in to your computer.

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4  
How does . /etc/environment work? – Sudip Bhandari Sep 13 '16 at 13:36
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Is the addition of the export command necessary in the /etc/environment ? – pkaramol Nov 23 '16 at 10:01
    
@pkaramol I've had to add export JAVA_HOME on 16.04LTS to make it load at startup. – adeen-s Jan 20 '17 at 6:20
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@adeen-s You added export to a line in /etc/environment and it helped? That file contains variable definitions parsed as =-delimited name-value pairs; its contents are not executed as commands. (See man pam_env.) So unless you're separately treating the file as though it were a script (such as by passing /etc/environment to bash's ./source builtin), I wouldn't expect that to work. – Eliah Kagan Aug 17 '17 at 16:02
up vote 23 down vote

If you do not know the path and you only have openJDK installed, you can type update-alternatives --config java and you should find the path. To set the variable you can write JAVA_HOME=<PATH> followed by export JAVA_HOME. Notice there's no space when declaring the variable. To check if the variable is stored you simply type echo $JAVA_HOME to verify.

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This seems like it would be static. If I remove openjdk-7 and install openjdk-9, won't the JAVA_HOME then point to the wrong place? How can it be made dynamic? – DavidJ Jul 20 '16 at 18:49
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By you manually changing it. Once again, YOU are the way it becomes dynamic.... – HDave Sep 20 '16 at 19:04
    
What @HDave means is that In certain cases, you may want JAVA_HOME to point to a specific java version, so making the update of JAVA_HOME dynamic may not be what you want. – Maciej Oct 9 '16 at 15:31
    
i like this answer. I tested with echo and see my path. However, I am confused why I am still getting JAVA_HOME environment variable is not set when I run mvn -version – Winnemucca Apr 11 '17 at 22:19
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I wrote this answer back when I was more ignorant. Setting the variable as described will only affect your current terminal session, and will not be persisted. The correct way is to run update-alternatives --install <link> <name> <target> <priority> for example: update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/lib/jvm/default-runtime/bin/java 1 – Erro May 14 '17 at 12:26

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