Openjdk (Java8) updated with January fixes

The icedtea project have released version 3.3.0 of their IcedTea build framework. This release updates the OpenJDK 8 support with the October 2016 bug fixes from OpenJDK 8 u112 and the January 2017 security fixes from OpenJDK 8 u121. Another point of notice is that improved font rendering is being worked on. The ‘infinality patches’ to freetype will be used for this. While I did not enable it in my package, IcedTea no longer requires a patched freetype. Infinality support should be enabled by default from IcedTea 3.4.0 onwards.

Compiling OpenJDK using IcedTea has resulted in the openjdk-8u121_b13 package for Slackware (Java 8 Update 121 Build 13). Next to the JDK there’s also the JRE package of course.

Here is list of security fixes and CVE‘s as taken from the announcement on Andrew Hughes’s blog:

• S8138725: Add options for Javadoc generation
• S8140353: Improve signature checking
• S8151934, CVE-2017-3231: Resolve class resolution
• S8156804, CVE-2017-3241: Better constraint checking
• S8158406: Limited Parameter Processing
• S8158997: JNDI Protocols Switch
• S8159507: RuntimeVisibleAnnotation validation
• S8161218: Better bytecode loading
• S8161743, CVE-2017-3252: Provide proper login context
• S8162577: Standardize logging levels
• S8162973: Better component components
• S8164143, CVE-2017-3260: Improve components for menu items
• S8164147, CVE-2017-3261: Improve streaming socket output
• S8165071, CVE-2016-2183: Expand TLS support
• S8165344, CVE-2017-3272: Update concurrency support
• S8166988, CVE-2017-3253: Improve image processing performance
• S8167104, CVE-2017-3289: Additional class construction refinements
• S8167223, CVE-2016-5552: URL handling improvements
• S8168705, CVE-2016-5547: Better ObjectIdentifier validation
• S8168714, CVE-2016-5546: Tighten ECDSA validation
• S8168728, CVE-2016-5548: DSA signing improvments
• S8168724, CVE-2016-5549: ECDSA signing improvments

Download locations for the JDK and JRE packages:

• http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/openjdk/
• http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/openjdk/ (rsync URI: rsync://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/slackbuilds/openjdk/)

If your applications are not yet ready for Java 8, I still maintain the Java 7 packages under new names:”openjdk7″ and “openjre7”. Note that my Java 7 and Java 8 packages (e.g. openjdk7 and openjdk) can not co-exist on your computer because they use the same installation directory.

There is no more need for a separate “rhino” package (implementation of the JavaScript engine used by OpenJDK) because in OpenJDK 8, this functionality is provided natively using the internal “nashorn” library.

Note about usage:

Remember that I release packages for the JRE (runtime environment) and the JDK (development kit) simultaneously, but you only need to install one of the two. The JRE is sufficient if you only want to run Java programs (including Java web plugins). Only in case where you’d want to develop Java programs and need a Java compiler, you are in need of the JDK package.

Optionally: If you want to use Java in a web browser then you’ll have to install my icedtea-web package too. While Oracle’s JDK contains a browser plugin, that one is closed-source and therefore Icedtea offers an open source variant which does a decent job. Note that icedtea-web is a NPAPI plugin – this prevents use of Java in Chrome & Chromium because those browsers only support PPAPI plugins, but you’ll be OK with all Mozilla [-compatible] browsers of course.

Have fun! Eric