Obtaining and Verifying Suitable JRE

Sonatype provides distributions for OSX and Windows with suitable runtime environments for the specific operating system on the Nexus Repository Downloads page.

Java compatibility information is available in the System Requirements and Java Compatibility Matrix.

The distributions for Unix do not include the runtime environment. If you prefer to use an external runtime or use a Unix operating system, you can choose to install the full JDK or the JRE only. You can confirm the installed Java version with the java -version command.

When multiple JDK or JRE versions are installed, you need to ensure the correct version is configured by running the above command as the operating system user that is used to run the repository manager.

In the event you have a non-standard location you need to update the configuration to specify a specific JDK or JRE installation path. To set the path for a specific Java location open the bin/nexus script and locate the line INSTALL4J_JAVA_HOME_OVERRIDE. Remove the hash and specify the location of your JDK/JRE:

INSTALL4J_JAVA_HOME_OVERRIDE=/usr/lib/jvm/openjdk-17

The startup script verifies the runtime environment by checking for the existence of the nested bin/java command as well as major and minor versions of the runtime for compatibility. If the configured runtime is not suitable, it will proceed with a best effort to locate a suitable runtime configured on the path or via the JAVA_HOME environment variable. If successful, it will start up the repository manager with this JVM. This allows you to have a dedicated runtime environment for the repository manager installed that is not on the path and not used by other installed applications. Further, you can separate upgrades of the Java runtime used by the repository manager from upgrades of the runtime used by other applications.