Installing ElasticSearch on Debian 6 Squeeze

If you try to install elasticsearch on debian 6, it's very likely you'll get into trouble with installing Java on this distribution.

Installing elasticsearch is straight and fast - you simply download and install .deb package from http://www.elasticsearch.org/download/ .

Then I tried to install JDK:

• FAIL no 1: add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java and install the oracle-java7-installer or oracle-java8-installer.

This worked fine but service elasticsearch start still kept giving me error message: "Starting elasticsearch service.. FAILED!"

• FAIL no 2: apt-get install openjdk-6-jre-headless (available in default for debian 6) gave me same error as the oracle jdk.

• the same goes for openjdk-7-jre-headless which I think I got from the same repository as oracle-java installer.

So, how to fix it?

Simply install sun-java6-jre. Make sure you have removed all the previous java installers, if you did install them. For example, do apt-get remove oracle-java-7-installerand make sure which java gives you 'not found' message.

Thanks for the protip to: http://pastebin.com/qS6tZnPX