Tyler Fitch

In trying to use the Chef community cookbook for Java I found it to only work with Java 6 and Java 7.

I was trying to create a cookbook to recreate an existing environment at work I need a scripted install of the Sun 1.5 JDK.

So I had to bail entirely on the community cookbook and go my own route.  Here’s how it played out.

• Download the installer you need.  In my case the .bin file - without the rpm, just the bin.
• Upload the .bin to your Artifactory server so everyone can easily get access to it when building their VMs.
• Get the installer on to the VM using Chef remote_file command with mode 0700 to ensure the installer is executable.

remote_file "/install/location/path/jdk-1_5_0_XYZ-linux-i586.bin" do
  source "http://your.artifactory.example.com/artifactory/yourRepo/jdk-1_5_0_XYZ-linux-i586.bin"
  mode "0700"
  not_if { ::File.exists?('/install/location/path/jdk-1_5_0_XYZ-linux-i586.bin') }
end

• Run the bash command to run the installer
• The installer requires acceptance of the EULA. So scripting this was a pain. Hat tip to Kule on linuxquestions.com - http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/java-jdk-silent-install-help-891313/#post4433389
• The EOH here is important - for me EOF did not work for the command attribute.

bash "install-jdk15" do
  cwd "/install/location/path"
  code <<-EOH
    ./jdk-1_5_0_XYZ-linux-i586.bin >/dev/null < <(echo yes) >/dev/null < <(echo yes)
    rm -rf /install/location/path/jdk1.5.0_XYZ/sample
    rm -rf /install/location/path/jdk1.5.0_XYZ/demo
    ln -s /install/location/path/jdk1.5.0_XYZ /install/location/path/java
  EOH
  not_if { ::File.exists?('/install/location/path/jdk1.5.0_XYZ/README.html') }
end

• Using the magic_shell cookbook - create a environment variable $JAVA_HOME just like the Java cookbook would and many Java apps now expect to exist.

magic_shell_environment 'JAVA_HOME' do
  value '/install/location/path/java'
end

One thing this does not do is put the java and/or javac executables in to your $PATH.  I’d do this like the Java cookbook does and do symlinks to /usr/local/bin if you need it.