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I am trying to install Java on a Linux server.

Linux server details

NAME="Oracle Linux Server"
VERSION="7.9"

System Architecture

x86_64

What I have tried so far

I have downloaded x64 Compressed Archive from https://download.oracle.com/java/24/latest/jdk-24_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz and extracted it in the /usr/java/ folder as a super user by using sudo su command. Then I updated the values of the PATH and JAVA_HOME variables in the .bashrc file. The echo $PATH command and echo $JAVA_HOME returned the below values.

/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/apps/local/go/bin:/apps/local/go/dev/bin:/usr/java/jdk-24/bin

/usr/java/jdk-24

Then I ran java -version to check the installation. But it returned below error.

bash: /usr/java/jdk-24/bin/java: cannot execute binary file

I did enough googling and tried the below workarounds

  • sudo update-alternatives --config java // it didn't return any value
  • chmod +x /usr/java/jdk-24/bin/java // didn't work

Then I navigated to my user folder (/home/XXX) and opened .bash_profile file:

# .bash_profile

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
    . ~/.bashrc
fi

# User specific environment and startup programs
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/bin
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/lib/java/jdk-24
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PATH

Then I ran source .bash_profile and then ran java -version, which showed the following:

java version "24" 2025-03-18
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 24+36-3646)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24+36-3646, mixed mode, sharing)

If I exit the root user and try again, it shows the "cannot execute binary file" error again.

Please help me to solve this issue.

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  • 1
    Oracle Linux 7.9 is outdated (End-of-Life: July 2024). Do you want to develop on the Oracle database with Java? Wouldn't you prefer to use a pre-configured VirtualBox with all the packages you need? You can easily install and use it on Windows, Mac, Solaris, Linux distributions, etc.
    – ReflectYourCharacter
    Commented Mar 25 at 17:18
  • 2
    Then your organisation should update the server. It's definitely not good practice to keep EOL systems running in a production environment
    – Chris Davies
    Commented Mar 25 at 20:41

1 Answer 1

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I think the most likely problem is that you're running (or rather, attempting to run) two different Java installations.

In your first example, the one that errors out,

JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk-24

In the second example, where you successfully run java -version

JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/lib/java/jdk-24

Check the values and try again.

Some other points that may or may not be relevant here:

  • Environment variables would usually be set in ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile, and not in ~/.bashrc
  • To get a root shell there's no need to use sudo su. Just sudo -s, or maybe sudo -i if you need a login shell, is quite sufficient
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  • On many distros even sudo bash is sufficient to get a shell with privileges to create root-owned files/directories, edit root-owned files, and run commands like yum/rpm/apt successfully as root.
    – Sotto Voce
    Commented Mar 25 at 20:52
  • @SottoVoce yes, but I don't see the point. sudo su is an anti-pattern better served by either sudo -s or sudo -i. You could use sudo bash an alternative to the first but it's longer to type
    – Chris Davies
    Commented Mar 25 at 21:28
  • True, bash is longer to type than -i or -s by two keystrokes, but the tradeoff is that, to the occasional sudo user (99.5% of everyone), the typing difference is tiny but the clarity of what happens is large. I wasn't trying to contradict your answer, just contributing a third command that gives the desired result.
    – Sotto Voce
    Commented Mar 26 at 1:45

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