[DAEMON-268] jsvc fails to find java home on centos

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Blocker
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 1.0.11
• Fix Version/s: 1.0.12
• Component/s: Jsvc

Environment

Oracle Java JRE 1.7.0_04
CentOS Linux 6.3, 64-bit

• Assignee: Mladen Turk
• Reporter: Richard Lowe
• Created: 28/Nov/12 18:05
• Updated: 20/Dec/12 12:29
• Resolved: 04/Dec/12 14:09

Description

Having upgraded to commons-daemon 1.0.11 from 1.0.10, we are now no longer able to start our service because Java Home cannot be located.

In our particular use case we do not set JAVA_HOME as an environment variable but instead specify it using the -home parameter on the jsvc command line. However I have tried using an environment variable and the result is the same: the jsvc fails to find the Java Home directory.

Having looked at the source code, I think the error is due to a recent change to home.c. In particular, the following on lines 215 to 221:

if (path == NULL || *path == '\0' || *path == '/') {
   log_debug("Home not specified on command line, using environment");
   path = getenv("JAVA_HOME");
   if (path == NULL || *path == '\0' || *path == '/') {
       /* guard against empty JAVA_HOME */
       path = NULL;
   }
}

The use of '==' to compare strings here is incorrect; the strcmp() function should be used instead. Currently, the code will fail if the first character of the path is '/', which is invariably the case on Linux, UNIX or MacOS systems. I suspect the reason that this has not been detected sooner is because MacOS and Ubuntu/Debian have been special-cased elsewhere to hard-code the expected Java Home location.

For us this is a blocker so we have reverted to using 1.0.10 until it is fixed. We also have a patch which I will attach to this issue shortly.

Issue Links

• is duplicated by: DAEMON-272 jsvc ignores -home option