How do I use the JAVA_OPTS environment variable?

Question

How do I use the JAVA_OPTS variable to configure a web server (a linux server)?

How can I set -Djava.awt.headless=true using JAVA_OPTS?

score 92 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 09 '11 at 05:35

JAVA_OPTS is the standard environment variable that some servers and other java apps append to the call that executes the java command.

For example in tomcat if you define JAVA_OPTS='-Xmx1024m', the startup script will execute java org.apache.tomcat.Servert -Xmx1024m

If you are running in Linux/OSX, you can set the JAVA_OPTS, right before you call the startup script by doing

JAVA_OPTS='-Djava.awt.headless=true'

This will only last as long as the console is open. To make it more permanent you can add it to your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc file.

if you run Spring boot fully executable jar, you could by this to specify -D property, e.g. JAVA_OPTS="-Dspring.profiles.active=test" ./myapp.jar — zhuguowei, Nov 22 '15 at 16:06

score 23 · Answer 2 · answered May 09 '14 at 06:04

23

Just figured it out in Oracle Java the environmental variable is called: JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS rather than JAVA_OPTS

answered May 09 '14 at 06:04

Madcat

score 18 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 09 '11 at 05:29

18

JAVA_OPTS is environment variable used by tomcat in its startup/shutdown script to configure params.

You can set it in linux by

export JAVA_OPTS="-Djava.awt.headless=true"

answered Mar 09 '11 at 05:29

jmj

score 5 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 04 '18 at 20:28

5

JAVA_OPTS is not restricted to Tomcat’s Java process, but passed to all JVM processes running on the same machine.

Use CATALINA_OPTS if you specifically want to pass JVM arguments to Tomcat's servlet engine.

edited Aug 04 '18 at 20:28

Michael Lihs

answered Jun 21 '13 at 09:51

Pharfar Phystok

16

This is not strictly correct. A lot of "JVM processes" pay no attention to $JAVA_OPTS at all. For instance, none of the Oracle java commands, Apache "mvn", Apache "ant", ... – Stephen C Jun 21 '13 at 10:20

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 04 '18 at 20:27

2

Actually, you can, even though accepted answer saying that you can't.

There is a _JAVA_OPTIONS environment variable, more about it here

edited Aug 04 '18 at 20:27

Michael Lihs

answered Jun 09 '17 at 14:57

Dmitry V.

score -1 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 09 '21 at 13:19

-1

As stated in these links below, you can edit JAVA_OPTS for Wildfly/JBoss in bin/standalone.conf

answered Jun 09 '21 at 13:19

Andorkan

6 Answers6