Overview - Java SE 8

This Release Note covers all point releases for Java SE 8 that are offered by eApps. Upgrade instructions are included.

Java SE 8 is only available for Virtual Servers running CentOS 6 and CentOS 7. If you are on a CentOS 5 (Webmin) or CentOS 4 (VPS) plan and need Java SE 8, you will need to migrate to a CentOS 6 or CentOS 7 plan. Contact eApps Sales for more information.

Java SE 8 is a major release of the Java Platform, Standard Edition. This release has introduced new functionality and significant changes to the existing Java SE platform. If you are upgrading from any prior version of Java to Java SE 8, there is a HIGH RISK of data loss and downtime if you do not carefully test your existing application with this new version.

eApps recommends, as a best practice, to maintain a staging server where you can test software upgrades before moving them into production. This approach will allow you to minimize the risk of data loss and downtime of your production service when performing software upgrades. If necessary, you can rebuild your staging Virtual Server on demand so that you have a fresh installation to test on. If you need more information about setting up a Virtual Server for staging or testing, please contact eApps Sales.

IMPORTANT: Java SE 8 has an extensive list of new features and changes. See the Official Java SE 8 Release Notes for a list of changes that may cause issues when upgrading: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u-relnotes-2225394.html. Please read this document carefully to understand all the changes in the Java SE 8 release. Upgrading to this version may significantly impact the operation of your applications. All Java SE 8 documentation is located here: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/index.html

eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_152
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_144
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_112
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_77
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_66
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_60
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_51
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_45
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_11
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_5
eApps Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_0

How to Upgrade
Java SE 6 or Java SE 7 to Java SE 8
Java SE 8 1.8.0_x to Java SE 8 1.8.0_y (newer version)

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_152

Features

• New Security property to control crypto policy
• BigInteger performance improvements turned on by default
• New defaults for DSA keys in jarsigner and keytool
• Improve javadoc generation

Fixes

• Remove revoked Swisscom root certificate "swisscomrootevca2"
• keytool now prints warnings when reading or generating certificates/certificate requests/CRLs using weak algorithms

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_144

Features

• MD5 added to jdk.jar.disabledAlgorithms Security property. If the signed JAR file uses MD5, signature verification operations will ignore the signature and treat the JAR as if it were unsigned
• New Let's Encrypt certificates added to root CAs

Fixes

• Correction of IllegalArgumentException from TLS handshake
• Disable SHA-1 TLS Server Certificates
• Custom HostnameVerifier enables SNI extension
• java.util.zip.ZipFile.getEntry() now always returns the ZipEntry instance with a / ended entry name for directory entry

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_112

Features

• New JVM Options added: ExitOnOutOfMemoryError and CrashOnOutOfMemoryError. Two new JVM flags have been added:
  
  • ExitOnOutOfMemoryError - When you enable this option, the JVM exits on the first occurrence of an out-of-memory error. It can be used if you prefer restarting an instance of the JVM rather than handling out of memory errors.
  • CrashOnOutOfMemoryError - If this option is enabled, when an out-of-memory error occurs, the JVM crashes and produces text and binary crash files (if core files are enabled).

• Support SHA224withDSA and SHA256withDSA in the SunJSSE provider

Fixes

• SHA224 removed from the default support list if SunMSCAPI enabled
• Modify requirements on Authority Key Identifier extension field during X509 certificate chain building
• SunPKCS11 Provider no longer offering SecureRandom by default

The official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_112 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u112-relnotes-3124973.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_77

Features

Java SE 8 1.8.0.77 is a bug fix and security release, no new features have been added.

Fixes

• Time zone data version 2016a is now included

The official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_77 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u77-relnotes-2944725.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_66

Features

• The ISO 4217 Table A.2 fund codes are now available (previously only Table A.1 was available)

Fixes

• Time zone data has been updated
• dns_lookup_realm in Kerberos now defaults to false

The official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_66 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u66-relnotes-2692847.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_60

Features

• RC4 cipher suites are disabled - RC4 TLS cipher suites are now considered compromised and should no longer be used. See bug JDK-8076221 for more information.

Fixes

• gcc compiler warnings in closed source code fixed
• Time zone data has been updated
• Unsafe monitor methods have been deprecated in JDK 8

The official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_60 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u60-relnotes-2620227.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_51

Features

Java SE 8 1.8.0_51 is a bug fix and security release, no new features have been added.

Fixes

• Added new root CA certificates for several SSL providers
• Updated Time Zone support
• Fix for a memory leak in JvmtiEnv::GetConstantPool

The official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_51 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u51-relnotes-2587590.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_45

Features

Java SE 8 1.8.0_45 is a bug fix and security release, no new features have been added.

Fixes

• Updated Time Zone support
• Fixed an issue where parsing of JNLP file would cause extensions to download

The official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_45 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u45-relnotes-2494160.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_11

Features

• New Java Dependency Analysis Tool (jdeps) to help find static dependencies for applications and libraries. More information is here: https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/JDK8/Java+Dependency+Analysis+Tool
• New JAR file attribute, Entry-Point is available. This is used to identify the classes that are allowed to be used as 'entry points' to the RIA.
• New property maxElementDepth was added to provide applications the ability to set limit on maximum element depth in an xml file that they parse

Fixes

• Fix for accessibility class in jar on -xbootclasspath/a not loaded by jvm
• Fix for applet caller check comparing URLs

The Official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_11 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u11-relnotes-2232915.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_5

Features

• Frequency of some security dialogs have been reduced on systems that run the same command multiple times
• A standalone asterisk (*) in Caller-Allowable-Codebase will show a security warning

Fixes

• Enhanced CORBA initializations
• Custom entities mappings are no longer loaded with full permissions

The Official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.8.0_5 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u-relnotes-2225394.html

Highlighted Features and Fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_0

Java SE 8 1.8.0_0 is a major new release of the Java Development Kit (JDK), and contains many new features and fixes.

Features and Fixes

• Lambda expressions - allow you to treat functionality as a method argument, or code as data.
• Performance improvements for Hashmaps
• Client-side TLS 1.2 enabled by default

This is only a very brief list of some of the new features and fixes in Java SE 8 1.8.0_0. Please read the official release notes for more information.

The Official Release Notes for Java SE 8 1.0.0_0 are available here - http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8train-relnotes-latest-2153846.html

How to upgrade

It is your responsibility to ensure that your application will work on the newer version of Java. There may be incompatibilities that will affect how your application works. Please make sure that you have read the official Release Notes and have done any necessary testing before upgrading a production application.

To upgrade from Java SE 6 or Java SE 7 to Java SE 8, you will need to either delete the existing application from the ISPmanager Control Panel and then install the new version from the Control Panel, or remove the existing version and install the new version from the command line.

To upgrade Java SE 8 to a newer version of Java SE 8, you will need to work from the command line using SSH and will need to be able to work as the root user. You will use yum to upgrade the application.

There is no direct upgrade path between major Java versions. To upgrade, you will need to backup any custom configurations you have made to Java SE 6 or Java SE 7, uninstall Java SE 6 or Java SE 7, and then install Java SE 8. Once you have successfully installed Java SE 8, you will need to redeploy any custom configurations and restart your Java based applications.

Java SE 6 or Java SE 7 to Java SE 8

Using the ISPmanager Control Panel

The steps to update Java 8 in ISPmanager will depend on which version of ISPmanager you are using. Information on how to tell which version of ISPmanager you are using can be found here - ISPmanager versions

ISPmanager 4 instructions

Before you can upgrade to Java SE 8, you will need to run two commands from the command line of your Virtual Server so that the ISPmanager Control Panel is aware that the update is available. Log in to your Virtual Server using SSH, and as the root user run these two commands:

/usr/local/ispmgr/sbin/mgrctl -m ispmgr plugin.update elid="appins" sok=ok >/dev/null 2>&1
/usr/local/ispmgr/sbin/mgrctl -m ispmgr feature.packcache elid="" sok=ok >/dev/null 2>&1

[root@eapps-example ]# /usr/local/ispmgr/sbin/mgrctl -m ispmgr plugin.update elid="appins" sok=ok >/dev/null 2>&1
[root@eapps-example ]# /usr/local/ispmgr/sbin/mgrctl -m ispmgr feature.packcache elid="" sok=ok >/dev/null 2>&1

NOTE - if you do not run the commands above, then you will not see Java SE 8 available in ISPmanager.

To uninstall Java SE 6 or Java SE 7 from ISPmanager 4, log in as root to the ISPmanager Control Panel, and go to Server Settings > Applications. Locate Java SE 6 or Java SE 7 in the list of applications, click on it to highlight it, and then click on Delete in the upper-right corner. Wait a few minutes, and then click on the link to Applications again to see if the uninstall process has completed. You may have to click on Applications several times before you see the application removed.

Once the older version of Java has been removed, install Java SE 8. Click on Java SE 8 in the Applications list, and then click on Install in the upper-right corner. This will install Java SE 8. Wait a few minutes, then click on the link to Applications again to see if the install process has completed. You may have to click on Applications several times before you see the application installed.

Once the update completes, you will need to redeploy any existing Java customizations, and restart your Java based applications.

ISPmanager 5 instructions (Java SE 7 to Java SE 8 only)

To uninstall Java SE 7 from ISPmanager 5, log in as root to the ISPmanager Control Panel, and go to Settings > Features. Locate Java SE 7 in the list of applications, click on it to highlight it, and then click on Delete in the upper left corner. Wait a few minutes, and then click on the link to Features again to see if the uninstall process has completed. You may have to click on Features several times before you see the application removed.

Once the older version of Java has been removed, install Java SE 8. Click on Java SE 8 in the Features list, and then click on Install. This will install Java Se 8. Wait a few minutes, then click on Features again to see if the install process has completed. You may have to click on Features several times before you see the application installed.

Once the update completes, you will need to redeploy any existing Java customizations, and restart your Java based applications.

Using the Command Line

To upgrade Java SE 6 or Java SE 7 to Java SE 8, you will need to work from the command line of the Virtual Server, logging in using SSH as the root user.

Once you are connected, use the yum remove java-1.6.0-sun or the yum remove java-1.7.0-sun command to remove Java SE 6 or Java SE 7, and then use the yum intall -y java-1.8.0-sun command to install Java SE 8.

Removing Java SE 6 or Java SE 7

[root@eapps-example ~]# yum remove java-1.6.0-sun

[root@eapps-example ~]# yum remove java-1.7.0-sun

Installing Java SE 8

[root@eapps-example ~]# yum install -y java-1.8.0-sun

Once the update completes, you will need to redeploy any existing Java customizations, and restart your Java based applications.

Java SE 8 1.8.0_x to Java SE 8 1.8.0_y (newer version)

To upgrade Java SE 8 to a newer version of Java SE 8, you will need to work from the command line using SSH, and you will need to be able to work as the root user. You will need to use yum to upgrade the application with the yum update java-1.8.0-sun command.

[root@eapps-example ]# yum update java-1.8.0-sun

Once the update completes, you will need to redeploy any existing Java customizations, and restart your Java based applications.