JRE Expiration Date

Question

What is JRE Expiration Date set to 07/18/2013 in release notes of Java Runtime Environment version 7u21?

JRE 7u21 release notes

Answer 1

As an adjunct to what Basil wrote, the old Java 7 JRE "phone home" mechanism has been superseded by the Java Management Service (JMS). JMS allows you to:

• View the versions and vendor information of Java runtimes running in your systems.
• Identify which Oracle Java versions are being used.
• Identify how many Oracle Java installations are not up to date.
• View the applications running on Oracle Java runtimes.
• Identify which systems run Oracle Java runtimes.
• Export your usage data to object storage locations in CSV format.

(Source: link above.)

More advanced JMS features are available if you have an Oracle Subscription.

However, I don't think that JMS has the "Update now" nagging of Java 7 JREs.

You will observe that JMS is aimed at "enterprise" users. People who use Java embedded in an application are now supposed to get Java updates via their application's support channel, not Oracle.

Answer 2

Update for modern Java

In recent years, Java releases arrive on schedule, like a train. That schedule is every Spring and every Autumn:

• Every six months comes a major release, such as Java 23, then Java 24, etc. Each release is production-ready, fully-tested, with the same exacting standards for quality each and every time. The release is publicly supported until a few months after the succeeding release.
• Every once in a while, likely every two years nowadays, one of these releases is designated as a Long-Term Support (LTS) version. Each LTS version indefinitely receives critical fixes for bugs and security vulnerabilities, but no new features, as determined by the various JDK/JRE vendors. Past LTS versions: 8, 11, 17, 21, and likely 25.

The JDK/JRE vendors include Amazon, Azul Systems, BellSoft, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Adoptium of Eclipse Foundation, SAP, and more.

You may want to buy a support contract available from some of those vendors. Among other things, you may be able to receive fixes for versions no longer publicly supported.

For more info, see videos by Brian Goetz or Nicolai Parlog on the subjects of the “release train” and LTS.

And study the document, Java Is Still Free 3.0.0 (Oct 2021) written by pillars of the Java community.

Answer 3

It's the date by which Java will consider itself out of date. Once out of date, it will start prompting the user to upgrade Java regardless of if a new Java versions has been released. It appears that this date is set to the next scheduled release + 1 month.

NOTE: Java also phones home and downloads a file with the latest versions of Java listed. If Oracle releases an out-of-band patch early, they can trigger the update now messages on all Java clients immediately.

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From release notes of Java 7 update 10

The JRE relies on periodic checks with an Oracle Server to determine if it (the JRE)is still considered up-to-date with all the available security fixes (above the security baseline). In the past, if the JRE was unable to contact the Oracle Server, it continued to behave as though it is still the most recent version with regard to security, for an indefinite period.

To avoid this problem, a secondary mechanism, that does not rely on external communication, has been added to the JDK 7u10. From this release onwards, all JREs will contain a hard-coded expiration date. The expiration date is calculated to end after the scheduled release of the next Critical Patch Update.

This means that JREs that are unable to contact Oracle Servers for an extended period of time, will now start offering additional protection after a reasonable period, and will not continue to behave as if they were still up-to-date with security fixes.

Answer 4

See Google with "Java end of life":

• lifetime-support
• Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap