Maven error :Perhaps you are running on a JRE rather than a JDK?

I've been facing the same issue with java 8 (ubuntu 16.04), trying to compile using mvn command line.

I verified my $JAVA_HOME, java -version and mvn -version. Everything seems to be okay pointing to /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64.

It appears that java-8-openjdk-amd64 is not completly installed by default and only contains the JRE (despite its name "jdk").

Re-installing the JDK did the trick.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

Then some new files and new folders are added to /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64 and mvn is able to compile again.


This is because of running jre rather than jdk, to install jdk follow below steps

Installing java 8 in amazon linux/redhat

--> yum search java | grep openjdk

--> yum install java-1.8.0-openjdk-headless.x86_64

--> yum install java-1.8.0-openjdk-devel.x86_64

--> update-alternatives --config java #pick java 1.8 and press 1

--> update-alternatives --config javac #pick java 1.8 and press 2

Thank You


Apparently, it requires tools.jar file inside the lib folder of my $JAVA_HOME. I did not have the lib folder, so I reinstalled my jdk using command

apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk openjdk-7-doc openjdk-7-jre-lib

Also, this link may help some people.