Upgrade jdk in centos 5 from 1.6 to 1.7 with alternatives command

1. Download latest java archive from oracle official website
2. Extract the the archieve with tar

# tar xzf jdk-7u79-linux-i586.tar.gz

3. After extracting Java archive file, set up to use newer version of Java using alternatives

# cd /opt/jdk1.7.0_79/
# /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /opt/jdk1.7.0_79/bin/java 2
# /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /opt/jdk1.7.0_79/bin/jar 2
# /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /opt/jdk1.7.0_79/bin/javac 2
# /usr/sbin/alternatives --set java  /opt/jdk1.7.0_79/bin/java
# /usr/sbin/alternatives --set jar /opt/jdk1.7.0_79/bin/jar
# /usr/sbin/alternatives --set javac /opt/jdk1.7.0_79/bin/javac  

4. After complete step 3, check Java version, make sure the version is what we expected
# java -version