Hi,
I have been studying alternatives for making the Geoserver startup.bat to find the location of jre from Windows 7 machine automatically. Currently the startup.bat checks only if the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set and if it is not then the script stops and asks user to set it. I believe that a long time ago the idea has been that one Java version on a computer is enough and the latest one is the best and everybody could be made happy by launching all programs from %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe.
Now I can see from my two year old computer that Java is extremely wide spread - I found totally 28 copies of java.exe from it! Amazingly many programs seem to install with its own copy of jre. No wonder that our admins do not set JAVA_HOME at all for our computers. After a short web review I believe this is status quo nowadays and startup.bat can't rely on finding the JAVA_HOME variable.
Literature review
1) There seems to be a modern alternative for JAVA_HOME which is using Windows registry with key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3930383/jre-installation-directory-in-windows
However, at least on our computers those keys are not set. Conclusion: Not reliable.
2) If Java is installed with installer then the Windows start menu has a few Java control tools. Especially the information that is shown by the javacpl.exe tool is stored into file: C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment. The file contains rows like
deployment.javaws.jre.0.path=C\:\\Program Files (x86)\\Java\\jre7\\bin\\javaw.exe
deployment.javaws.jre.0.product=1.7.0_51
3) Usually one copy of java.exe and javaw.exe can be found either from \Windows\System32 directory or in case of 32-bit jre on 64-bit Windows, from \Windows\SysWOW64. Those executables seem to start the highest and latest jre version of all versions which are listed by javacpl.exe.
4) Jre can also be installed simply by copying the program files to some directory. In this case jre can't be found by checking the registry or AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment file. Sometimes this jre path is added into PATH variable but fortunately not so often nowadays.
Now how should we fix the startup.bat file? What about making it to use this logic:
1) If JAVA_HOME is set as system or user variable it is probably done for reason so use it.
2) Check if there is java.exe in \System32. That would start 64-bit jre on 64-bit computers and 32-bit jre on 32-bit computers.
3) If 2) fails and computer is 64-bit version, try to find 32-bit jre with the SysWOW64 system.
4) If all previous fail, prompt user to edit startup.bat file and set JAVA_HOME there.
-Jukka Rahkonen-
Hi Jukka,
since nobody made a move on the windows installer I thought I had a look myself.
Unfortunately I cannot reproduce any of the issues on a pretty much vanilla windows 7 VM I have at hand
(on my main computer, the other time I used a different one on another machine I do
not have handy now):
- I’ve just installed Java going to the Oracle website and pressing on the big “install java”
red button they have on the web site, it did setup JAVA_HOME and installed java 7 updated 67
for me
- I’ve created the installer using nsis and it did create a writable directory in program files
for me, indeed towards the end of the installer I’ve found these (that required me to
add a plugin in nsis to have the installer creation work):
; Security (of sorts)
${If} $IsManual == 1 ; manual
AccessControl::GrantOnFile "$INSTDIR" “(BU)” “FullAccess”
${ElseIf} $IsManual == 0 ; service
AccessControl::GrantOnFile “$INSTDIR\logs” “NT AUTHORITY\Network Service” “FullAccess”
AccessControl::GrantOnFile “$DataDir” “NT AUTHORITY\Network Service” “FullAccess”
${EndIf}
Sigh… it seems one needs a particular setup to reproduce at least some of the issues
reported?
Cheers
Andrea
···
On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Rahkonen Jukka (Tike) <jukka.rahkonen@anonymised.com> wrote:
Hi,
I have been studying alternatives for making the Geoserver startup.bat to find the location of jre from Windows 7 machine automatically. Currently the startup.bat checks only if the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set and if it is not then the script stops and asks user to set it. I believe that a long time ago the idea has been that one Java version on a computer is enough and the latest one is the best and everybody could be made happy by launching all programs from %JAVA_HOME%\bin\java.exe.
Now I can see from my two year old computer that Java is extremely wide spread - I found totally 28 copies of java.exe from it! Amazingly many programs seem to install with its own copy of jre. No wonder that our admins do not set JAVA_HOME at all for our computers. After a short web review I believe this is status quo nowadays and startup.bat can’t rely on finding the JAVA_HOME variable.
Literature review
-
There seems to be a modern alternative for JAVA_HOME which is using Windows registry with key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3930383/jre-installation-directory-in-windows
However, at least on our computers those keys are not set. Conclusion: Not reliable.
-
If Java is installed with installer then the Windows start menu has a few Java control tools. Especially the information that is shown by the javacpl.exe tool is stored into file: C:\Users[user_name]\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment. The file contains rows like
deployment.javaws.jre.0.path=C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\javaw.exe
deployment.javaws.jre.0.product=1.7.0_51
-
Usually one copy of java.exe and javaw.exe can be found either from \Windows\System32 directory or in case of 32-bit jre on 64-bit Windows, from \Windows\SysWOW64. Those executables seem to start the highest and latest jre version of all versions which are listed by javacpl.exe.
-
Jre can also be installed simply by copying the program files to some directory. In this case jre can’t be found by checking the registry or AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment file. Sometimes this jre path is added into PATH variable but fortunately not so often nowadays.
Now how should we fix the startup.bat file? What about making it to use this logic:
- If JAVA_HOME is set as system or user variable it is probably done for reason so use it.
- Check if there is java.exe in \System32. That would start 64-bit jre on 64-bit computers and 32-bit jre on 32-bit computers.
- If 2) fails and computer is 64-bit version, try to find 32-bit jre with the SysWOW64 system.
- If all previous fail, prompt user to edit startup.bat file and set JAVA_HOME there.
-Jukka Rahkonen-
Infragistics Professional
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–
==
GeoServer Professional Services from the experts! Visit
http://goo.gl/NWWaa2 for more information.
==
Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead
GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy
phone: +39 0584 962313
fax: +39 0584 1660272
mob: +39 339 8844549
http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it
Hi Jukka,
I've hacked my enviroment so that at least JAVA_HOME is not set, removed
GeoServer, removed GEOSERVER_DATA_DIR, and tried at least to have
the startup.bat work.
Since I believe antiviruses/antispam will stop a mail containing a batch
file,
I've pasted the result of my changes here:
http://justpaste.it/gn2z
Jukka, do you have time to have a look/try it out?
Anyone else has time to review it?
Cheers
Andrea
--
GeoServer Professional Services from the experts! Visit
http://goo.gl/NWWaa2 for more information.
Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead
GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy
phone: +39 0584 962313
fax: +39 0584 1660272
mob: +39 339 8844549
http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it
-------------------------------------------------------