Java

The following are instructions for using the java mise core plugin. This is used when there isn't a git plugin installed named "java".

If you want to use asdf-java then use mise plugins install java GIT_URL.

The code for this is inside the mise repository at ./src/plugins/core/java.rs.

Usage

The following installs the latest version of openjdk-21.x (if some version of openjdk-21.x is not already installed) and makes it the global default:

mise use -g java@openjdk-21
mise use -g java@21         # alternate shorthands for openjdk-only

See available versions with mise ls-remote java.

WARNING

Note that shorthand versions (like 21 in the example) use OpenJDK as the vendor. The OpenJDK versions will only be updated for a 6-month period. Updates and security patches will not be available after this short period. This also applies for LTS versions. Also see https://whichjdk.com for more information.

Tool Options

The following tool-options are available for the java backend—these go in [tools] in mise.toml.

release_type

The release_type option allows you to specify the type of release to install. The following values are supported:

• ga (default): General Availability release
• ea: Early Access release

[tools]
"java" = { version = "openjdk-21", release_type = "ea" }

macOS JAVA_HOME Integration

Some applications in macOS rely on /usr/libexec/java_home to find installed Java runtimes.

To integrate an installed Java runtime with macOS run the following commands for the proper version (e.g. openjdk-21).

sudo mkdir /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk-21.jdk
sudo ln -s ~/.local/share/mise/installs/java/openjdk-21/Contents /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk-21.jdk/Contents

Note: Not all distributions of the Java SDK support this integration (e.g liberica).

Legacy version files

The Java core plugin supports the legacy version files .java-version and .sdkmanrc.

For .sdkmanrc files, mise will try to map the vendor and version to the appropriate version string. For example, the version 20.0.2-tem will be mapped to temurin-20.0.2. Due to Azul's Zulu versioning, the version 11.0.12-zulu will be mapped to the major version zulu-11. Not all vendors available in SDKMAN are supported by mise. The following vendors are NOT supported: bsg ( Bisheng), graal (GraalVM), nik (Liberica NIK).

In case an unsupported version of java is needed, some manual work is required:

1. Download the unsupported version to a directory (e.g ~/.sdkman/candidates/java/21.0.1-open)
2. symlink the new version:

ln -s ~/.sdkman/candidates/java/21.0.1-open ~/.local/share/mise/installs/java/21.0.1-open

3. If on Mac:

mkdir ~/.local/share/mise/installs/java/21.0.1-open/Contents
mkdir ~/.local/share/mise/installs/java/21.0.1-open/Contents/MacOS

ln -s ~/.sdkman/candidates/java/21.0.1-open ~/.local/share/mise/installs/java/21.0.1-open/Contents/Home
cp ~/.local/share/mise/installs/java/21.0.1-open/lib/libjli.dylib ~/.local/share/mise/installs/java/21.0.1-open/Contents/MacOS/libjli.dylib

4. Don't forget to make sure the cache is blocked and valid, by making sure an empty directory exists for your version in the mise cache: e.g.

$ ls -R $MISE_CACHE_DIR/java
21.0.1-open

mise/java/21.0.1-open: