Installing Oracle Java8 on CentOS/RHEL

Step 1: Download JAVA Archive

Download latest Java SE Development Kit 8 release from its download page.

# 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/8u5-b13/jdk-8u5-linux-i586.tar.gz"
Note: If Above wget command doesn’t not worked for you watch this screencast to download JDK from terminal.

Now extract downloaded archive file

# tar xzf jdk-8u5-linux-i586.tar.gz
Step 2: Install JAVA using Alternatives

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

# cd /opt/jdk1.8.0_05/
# alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /opt/jdk1.8.0_05/bin/java 2
# alternatives --config java


There are 3 programs which provide 'java'.

  Selection    Command
-----------------------------------------------
*  1           /opt/jdk1.8.0/bin/java
 + 2           /opt/jdk1.7.0_55/bin/java
   3           /opt/jdk1.8.0_05/bin/java

Enter to keep the current selection[+], or type selection number: 3

At this point JAVA 8 has been successfully installed on your system.

Step 3: Check Version of JAVA .

Check the installed version of java using following command.

# java -version

java version "1.8.0_05"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_05-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 25.5-b02, mixed mode)

Step 4: Setup 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_05
Setup JRE_HOME Variable
# export JRE_HOME=/opt/jdk1.8.0_05/jre
Setup PATH Variable
# export PATH=$PATH:/opt/jdk1.8.0_05/bin:/opt/jdk1.8.0_05/jre/bin