How do you address the issue of a missing tools.jar in a JDK in Mac OS X?

Asked 11/4, 2011 at 2:48 Answered 14/12, 2016 at 9:44

From my searching, I found supporting information here: Java Development Guide for Mac OS X

tools.jar does not exist. Classes usually located here are instead included in classes.jar. Scripts that rely on the existence of tools.jar need to be rewritten accordingly.

If a rewrite is inevitable, how does that go?

This problem was encountered while deploying on Tomcat 6 installed via MacPorts on a Mac OS X 10.6 machine.

Gillis answered 11/4, 2011 at 2:48 Comment(4)

Erwin Ramizer: a few notes... The way Java works on OS X will change soon with the new OS X release, which shall not install Java by default. Soon Apple won't be shipping Java anymore on OS X and it's likely the new "shipper" will not be packaging Java in the same way. OS X "server" and Mac servers are apparently getting discontinued :( – Tabbatha 11/4, 2011 at 9:9

Does that mean Java developers will then have free rein on their dev environments? By that, I mean installing the "official" packages would be the norm (like in Linux distros), instead of relying on the pre-packaged JDK/JRE. If so, then Java dev environments would look more similar regardless of the platform, right (which, I suppose, is a good thing)? – Gillis 11/4, 2011 at 12:9

I have no idea... I'm waiting to see how things turn out too :) – Tabbatha 11/4, 2011 at 12:15

Now I don't know how to close this question. As it turns out, the guy who asked me this no longer experiences the problem. I asked him how it got resolved, and I haven't received a response yet. – Gillis 12/4, 2011 at 5:58

Here is my tested solution, which implies no change in maven config, just add symbolic links:

ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_38-b04-436.jdk/Contents/Home/../Classes/classes.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_38-b04-436.jdk/Contents/Home/../Classes/tools.jar
ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_38-b04-436.jdk/Contents/Home/../Classes /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_38-b04-436.jdk/Contents/Home/../lib

Enjoy! Bruno

Raffle answered 24/1, 2013 at 22:45 Comment(2)

Quick note, I had to change my JAVA_HOME to point to the /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_38-b04-436.jdk/Contents/Home/ because by default on my mountain lion machine it was pointing to /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home – Decoupage 3/6, 2013 at 17:36

In my case:

sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home/lib /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home/Classes

and

sudo ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home/Classes/classes.jar

– Iluminadailwain 21/11, 2016 at 20:33

This is similar to Bruno's answer above; however, I am not a big fan of symlinking the absolute path. Here is how I handle the symlinks:

cd /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/<jdk version>/Contents/Home
sudo ln -s lib Classes

cd lib/
sudo ln -s tools.jar classes.jar

That makes it easier then symlinking absolute paths.

Liebknecht answered 27/5, 2016 at 4:43 Comment(0)

Well, you search for 'tools.jar', with grep for instance. If the place where classes.jar is, where tools.jar was expected, you could just change the word.

Another idea is, to create a symbolic link from classes.jar to tools.jar, if you have enough privileges and the file system(s) on MacOS support this. Else: copy. Might be more easy, but not be forgotten for updates, maybe.

Peculiarize answered 11/4, 2011 at 4:5 Comment(0)

Instead of using Tomcat from Macports download Tomcat from Apache.

6.0: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi

7.0: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-70.cgi

Decretory answered 11/4, 2011 at 12:25 Comment(2)

I was avoiding having to install from source, which was why I chose MacPorts. Now, I don't remember why I decided that way. Probably because some other software was already installed via MacPorts, so I might have thought to maximize its use. – Gillis 12/4, 2011 at 5:56

You don't have to install from source, you can download one of the binary distributions from the links above. Just unzip and you're done. – Decretory 12/4, 2011 at 12:27

Edit to Bruno's answer which was finally what worked for me after quite a bit of maven trial and error.

If you are using 1.7 then you should be able to change revision to 1.7. I do not know if this is still a problem in Java 1.7 though.

sudo sh -c '$(j_home=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6) && ln -sf ${j_home}/../Classes/classes.jar ${j_home}/../Classes/tools.jar && ln -sf ${j_home}/../Classes ${j_home}/../lib)'

Decoupage answered 3/6, 2013 at 18:7 Comment(0)

I faced the same problem, and resolved it differently.

First check that the java_home is set as /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents and not /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

Add the cobertura plugin, make sure systemPath is correctly ref the location of classes.jar

    <plugin>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
        <artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.6</version>
        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>com.sun</groupId>
                <artifactId>tools</artifactId>
                <version>1.6</version>
                <scope>system</scope>
                <systemPath>${java_home}/Classes/classes.jar</systemPath>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </plugin>

Add the dependency and exclude tools

    <dependency>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.6</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>com.sun</groupId>
            <artifactId>tools</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

Finally add the following profiles

<profiles>
<profile>
    <id>standard-jdk</id>
    <activation>
        <file>
            <exists>${java_home}/Home/lib/tools.jar</exists>
        </file>
    </activation>
    <properties>
        <tools-jar>${java_home}/Home/lib/tools.jar</tools-jar>
    </properties>
</profile>
<profile>
    <id>apple-jdk</id>
    <activation>
        <file>
            <exists>${java_home}/Classes/classes.jar</exists>
        </file>
    </activation>
    <properties>
        <tools-jar>${java_home}/Classes/classes.jar</tools-jar>
    </properties>
</profile>

Now run maven and it should successfully generate the Cobertura reports!

Betwixt answered 17/11, 2013 at 13:18 Comment(0)

Can't find any references to it on the interweb, but my Mac 1.7 and 1.8 jdk's now have tools.jar.

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_12.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_60.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_79.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_51.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_92.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Classes/classes.jar

classes.jar is only present in mac 1.6 jdk.

--Erik

Marijo answered 14/12, 2016 at 9:44 Comment(1)

Yes, this problem was for Java 6 on Mac. – Gillis 14/12, 2016 at 9:46

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