ok, here's what the problem was.... in the bootstrap process there are some rpm packages being installed that depend on the package 'java'... as I was installing from source no package could provide java and yum would resolve to openjdk... here's a little chef snipplet that installs the rpm from oracle (you can grab the url from their official distribution): execute 'downloading java' do command <<-EOF cd /root && \ wget --no-cookies --no-check-certificate --header \ \"Cookie: gpw_e24=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oracle.com%2F; oraclelicense=accept-securebackup-cookie\" \ \"#{node['java']['pkg_url']}\" EOF creates "/root/#{node['java']['pkg_name']}" end yum_package 'java' do source "/root/#{node['java']['pkg_name']}" end ... View more