Install Java 8 on Debian 10

Cassandra 3.11 does not work on Java 11, but Debian 10 has OpenJdk 11 installed as default.

Problem

When following the instructions of the Cassandra installation, nodetool status outputs the exception:

error: null
-- StackTrace --
java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor.getDiskFailurePolicy(DatabaseDescriptor.java:1881)
at org.apache.cassandra.utils.JVMStabilityInspector.inspectThrowable(JVMStabilityInspector.java:82)
at org.apache.cassandra.io.util.FileUtils.<clinit>(FileUtils.java:79)
at org.apache.cassandra.utils.FBUtilities.getToolsOutputDirectory(FBUtilities.java:788)
at org.apache.cassandra.tools.NodeTool.printHistory(NodeTool.java:200)
at org.apache.cassandra.tools.NodeTool.main(NodeTool.java:168)

Reason

Cassandra 3.11 does not support Java 11. Java 11 support is implemented in Cassandra 4.

Solution

Install Java 8 alongside Java 11 since Cassandra 4 has not been released yet. Then config nodetool to use Java 8.

Install Java 8

  1. Add a contrib component to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:

    # Debian 8 "Jessie"
    deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib

  2. Update the list of available packages and install the java-package package:

    # apt-get update && apt-get install java-package && exit

  3. Download the desired Java JDK/JRE binary distribution from Oracle.

  4. Use java-package to create a Debian package, for example:

    $ make-jpkg jdk-8u51-linux-x64.tar.gz

  5. Install the binary package created:

    $ su
    # dpkg -i oracle-java8-jdk_8u51_amd64.deb

Config nodetool

  1. Locate the file /usr/bin/nodetool.
  2. Run sudo vi nodetool.
  3. Add JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/oracle-java8-server-jre-amd64" at the very beginning of the file.

Done

nodetool status should work now.

Configuration on system level

To use a specific version of Java

# update-alternatives --display java
# update-alternatives --config java

References

  1. Debian JavaPackage
  2. Digital Ocean