#581 Java environment variable causes Areca startup to fail

[Brad]

I ran into a problem where Areca would no longer start on my RHEL7 box. After going to the command line to run areca.sh from there, I received the following error output:

*ls: cannot access /usr/java: No such file or directory
No valid JRE found in /usr/java.
*

I had not done any system/java updates since I last ran Areca successfully, but I had added a system-wide java variable to /etc/environment (underscoreJAVAunderscoreOPTIONS). I determined this addition to be the change that tickled this bug. In areca_run.sh, the function check_version() determines the java version by parsing the first line returned from "java -version"; however with the addition of the java environment variable, the first line produced from the aforementioned command is "Picked up underscoreJAVAunderscoreOPTIONS ..." rather than the expected "java version 1.x.x".

To fix this issue (and to take into account the bug found in ticket #563 regarding the java version string of OpenJDK 1.8), I changed check_version() from:

JAVA_HEADER=${JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR}java -version 2>&1 | head -n 1

TO

JAVA_HEADER=${JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR}java -version 2>&1 | grep -Eo "(java|openjdk) version \"[0-9._]*\""

This modification allowed Areca to properly validate java and start without error.

[Kempelen]

Very similar problem here and fixed like mentioned above. I add this comment because search for the error message didn't find this bug report due to writing "underscore"

$java -version
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -javaagent:/usr/share/java/jayatanaag.jar
java version "1.7.0_79"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea 2.5.6) (7u79-2.5.6-0ubuntu1.15.04.1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.79-b02, mixed mode)

Useful info, this message cannot be disabled:
https://community.oracle.com/thread/1239778?start=0&tstart=0

[tastyminerals]

The correct bash statement is:

JAVA_HEADER=$(${JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR}java -version 2>&1 | grep -Eo "(java|openjdk) version \"[0-9._]*\"")

[Joe Linux]

Hi all,

this is a really bad bug because it keeps people from compiling and testing Areca Backup. Please see the discussion here, for example: https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=121&t=42039. As you can see, it even keeps Areca Backup from being regarded as a candidate for a superb Debian based distro's test repo. (As for now, it's not in Debian Jessie's repos.)

Maybe one of you would be able to implement a clean fix into the Java package? That would be great, and maybe it would greatly help to revitalise Areca Backup, which has great features that are rarely found otherwise. As far as I understand it from what I've read above, the problem is fully understood and a solution is available.

I would implement the fix myself but unfortunately my knowledge is far too limited.

Greetings, Joe

PS In case Oliver Petrucci, the developer ("aventin"), reads this: Since you seem to be all on your own, I guess quite a few people would love to support this project with small donations if only you published some bank account data on the Areca Backup website. Not everybody has (or wants to have) a PayPal account. In any case, thanks a lot for your decent work.

[Desuche]

My system is ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64bits and java openjdk version "1.8.0_151",

This work-aroud was not enough (or not useful); I leave this change in the "areca_run.sh" file but have to add another fix found on the web :
Change,
if [[ "$JAVA_IMPL" = "java" ; then
by :
if [[ "$JAVA_IMPL" = "java" || "$JAVA_IMPL" = "openjdk" ]] ; then

After these changes, Areca backup accept to start.

[Koaunghi Un]

I've come to here to run areca.sh. I had following error message:

ls: cannot access '/usr/java': No such file or directory
No valid JRE found in /usr/java.

The Brad's solution didn't work for me. Probably because I use Fedora Linux 28 and the directory structure of java is not the same as RHEL7.

For Fedora, the JAVADIR should be

JAVADIR=/usr/lib/jvm

and the look_for_java() should be changed to

look_for_java() {
  IFS=$'\n'
  potential_java_dirs=(`ls -1 "$JAVADIR" | sort | tac`)
  IFS=
  for D in "${potential_java_dirs[@]}"; do
    #if [[ -d "$JAVADIR/$D" && -x "$JAVADIR/$D/java" ]]; then
      #JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR="$JAVADIR/$D/"
    if [[ -d "$JAVADIR/$D" && -x "$JAVADIR/$D/bin/java" ]]; then
      JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR="$JAVADIR/$D/bin/"
      echo "JRE found in ${JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR} directory."
      if check_version ; then
        return 0
      else
        return 1
      fi
    fi
  done
  echo "No valid JRE found in ${JAVADIR}."
  return 1
}

In order to implement openjdk-awareness, I took the tastyminerals' and Deutsche's advice in the function check_version() as follows:

check_version() {
  #JAVA_HEADER=`${JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR}java -version 2>&1 | head -n 1`
  JAVA_HEADER=$(${JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR}java -version 2>&1 | grep -Eo "(java|openjdk) version \"[0-9._]*\"")
  JAVA_IMPL=`echo ${JAVA_HEADER} | cut -f1 -d' '`
  #if [ "$JAVA_IMPL" = "java" ] ; then
  if [[ "$JAVA_IMPL" = "java" || "$JAVA_IMPL" = "openjdk" ]] ; then
    VERSION=`echo ${JAVA_HEADER} | sed "s/java version \"\(.*\)\"/\1/"`
    if echo $VERSION | grep "^1.[0-3]" ; then
      return 1
    else
      return 0
    fi
  else
    return 1
  fi
}

[Koaunghi Un]

One more thing.

Becasuse the directory structure seems to vary from distros to distros, it could be an alternative to install Sun's jre (installed to the folder /opt in my case) and modify areca_run.sh as follows:

JAVADIR=/opt/jre1.8.0_181
...
look_for_java() {
  IFS=$'\n'
  potential_java_dirs=(`ls -1 "$JAVADIR" | sort | tac`)
  IFS=
  for D in "${potential_java_dirs[@]}"; do
    #if [[ -d "$JAVADIR/$D" && -x "$JAVADIR/$D/java" ]]; then
      #JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR="$JAVADIR/$D/"
    if [[ -d "$JAVADIR/$D" && -x "$JAVADIR/$D/bin/java" ]]; then
      JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR="$JAVADIR/$D/bin/"
      echo "JRE found in ${JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR} directory."
      if check_version ; then
        return 0
      else
        return 1
      fi
    fi
  done
  echo "No valid JRE found in ${JAVADIR}."
  return 1
}