DESCRIPTION
Most Java programs are not run directly, but through small shell scripts that take care of various things, such as finding a suitable java environment and looking for libraries.
To ease the task of the maintainers, they rely on a library providing runtime detection, library detection and other features. This manual page describes the common features of all those scripts, and to which point you can configure them. This is mainly done via environment variables.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
java-wrappers understands some environment variables:
- JAVA_CMD
-
The
java
command that will be run. If this variable is set, it disables all
lookup for a java runtime.
- JAVA_BINDIR
-
Specifies a directory that will be looked for a
java
or a
jdb
executable (depending on the setting of
JAVA_DEBUGGER).
It has precedence over
JAVA_HOME
but not over
JAVA_CMD.
- JAVA_HOME
-
A path to a java runtime. If this variable is set, all lookup for a
java runtime is disabled, except that if no
java
executable is found in the path, the command
java
is used.
- JAVA_FLAVOR
-
A probably more easy-to-use version of the
JAVA_HOME
variable: instead of specifying the full path of the java runtime, you
name it. List of available flavors can be found in the file
/usr/lib/java-wrappers/jvm-list.sh.
See examples below.
- JAVA_DEBUGGER
-
If this is set, the wrapper will try to pick up a java debugger rather
than a java interpreter. This will fail if the
jbd
of the runtime found is a stub.
- JAVA_CLASSPATH
-
Additional classpath, will have priority over the one found by the
wrapper.
- JAVA_ARGS
-
Additional arguments to the
java
command. They will come before all other arguments.
- FORCE_CLASSPATH
-
If this variable is set, it will be
the only classpath.
You'd better know what you are doing.
- DEBUG_WRAPPER
-
This is probably the most important variable; if it set, the wrapper
will print out useful information as it goes by its business, such as
which runtime it did find, and which command is run eventually.
- JAVA_JARPATH
-
The path where the wrappers will go looking for
jar
archives. If not set, the wrapper will look into the default
directory,
/usr/share/java.
Warning :
the wrapper will not look anywhere else than in
JAVA_JARPATH.
Setting it incorrectly will most probably result in early crashes.
EXAMPLES
The examples all rely on rasterizer(1), from the package libbatik-java, but they really apply to all scripts that use java-wrappers.
Print out debugging information:
DEBUG_WRAPPER=1 rasterizer
Limit rasterizer's memory to 80 MB:
JAVA_ARGS=-Xmx80m rasterizer
Force rasterizer to run with kaffe(1):
JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/kaffe rasterizer
The same, but using JAVA_BINDIR:
JAVA_BINDIR=/usr/lib/kaffe/bin rasterizer
Force rasterizer to run with openjdk:
JAVA_FLAVOR=openjdk rasterizer
Debug rasterizer with Sun's debugger, while printing debugging information from the wrapper:
DEBUG_WRAPPER=1 JAVA_CMD=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/bin/jdb rasterizer
BUGS
Care has been taken to make the wrappers bug-free. If that was not the case, please file a bug report against the java-wrappers package.
If you wish to submit any problem with a java executable relying on java-wrappers, please also submit the output of the command run with DEBUG_WRAPPER=1. It will save one mail exchange and therefore potentially reduce the time it takes to fix the bug.
DEVELOPERS
There is currently no documentation about writing a wrapper script save the comments in /usr/lib/java-wrappers/java-wrappers.sh. If you have to write one, we suggest you base yourself upon, for instance, the rasterizer wrapper script, or any other one (just pick up any direct reverse dependency of java-wrappers and look for scripts).