# Building Apache Karaf ## Initial Setup 1. Install J2SE 8.0 SDK (or later), which can be downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html Use version of "JDK 8.0 Update 131" (or later). 2. Make sure that your JAVA_HOME environment variable is set to the newly installed JDK location, and that your PATH includes `%JAVA_HOME%\bin` (windows) or `$JAVA_HOME$/bin` (unix). 3. Install Maven 3.5.0 (or later), which can be downloaded from http://maven.apache.org/download.html. Make sure that your PATH includes the `$MVN_HOME/bin` directory. ## Building 1. Change to the top level directory of Apache Karaf source distribution. 2. Run ``` $> mvn clean install ``` This will compile Apache Karaf and run all of the tests in the Apache Karaf source distribution. Alternatively, you can run: ``` $> mvn clean install -DskipTests ``` This will compile Apache Karaf without running the tests and takes less time to build. 3. The distributions will be available under `assemblies/apache-karaf/target` and `assemblies/apache-karaf-minimal/target` directories.