Packaging the Sun Java JCE Policy

This is a less useful writeup now than it would be six months ago when I was first going to do it, but oh well. Some people are still stuck running the Sun Java JDK for a while longer, and maybe it will be useful.

Due to a variety of silly reasons too long to get into, the non-free Sun JDK comes with some encryption functionality disabled, particularly 256-bit AES. Those who want to use it have to download and install two replacement JAR files, which are not redistributable. While the Sun JDK is packaged for Debian in squeeze for those who have to use it (usually for legacy applications that haven't been ported to OpenJDK 7), the JCE policy files cannot be packaged.

The hardest part of this is that, due to how the Sun JDK is packaged and where the files have to be installed, it's tricky to install them without having to redo that work each time the Sun JDK is upgraded or reinstalled.

I wrote up instructions and packaging files for building packages that do the right thing, including across version upgrades of the Sun JDK. If you still have to use the Sun JDK, take a look. (And work on converting your software to work with OpenJDK 7 for the wheezy release!)