Executing the stock ActiveMQ 5.3.2 startup script with java 7 complains about JAVA_HOME Turns out the error was related to .activemqrc that was created when I tested with ActiveMQ 5.8.0. The JAVACMD is set to "auto" in that file part way through the 5.3.2 activemq startup script. apache-activemq-5.3.2/bin$ activemq Error: JAVA_HOME is not defined correctly. We cannot execute auto Java home was set correctly: ...java/apache-activemq-5.3.2/bin$ echo $JAVA_HOME /home/myusername/java/jdk1.7.0_15 Needed to edit the script and add the following right before "if [ -z "$JAVACMD" ] ; then" JAVACMD= This clears the mysterious setting to auto, echoing it returned a blank line: ...java/apache-activemq-5.3.2/bin$ echo $JAVACMD ...java/apache-activemq-5.3.2/bin$