HowTo: Firefox Java plugin on CentOS 6.2 / SL 6.2

Enabling Firefox's Java plugin is a necessity these days, especially when you want to do your taxes and the government's online tool demands a Java enabled browser.

OpenJDK (Open Java Development Kit) is a free and open source implementation of the Java programming language. OpenJDK however isn't bundled with the web browser plugin which is a part of Oracle Java.

Fortunately the IcedTea-Web project provides a Java web browser plugin.

On RHEL6 and its clones, icedtea-web depends on java-1.6.0-openjdk and will pull it as a dependency.

In practice, on CentOS 6.2 and Scientific Linux 6.2 if you want to have Firefox working with a Java plugin simply install icedtea-web, like so:

1. $ su
2. # yum install icedtea-web

Launch Mozilla Firefox and in the address bar enter about:plugins.

Also you can point Firefox to http://www.javatester.org/version.html and check if you have the Java Run-Time Environment working.

Now we can all submit our tax reports ;)