RFR: 8349546: Linux support for Kerberos "nativeccache" functionality [v13]

[Nick Hall]

On Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:31:04 GMT, Weijun Wang <weijun at openjdk.org> wrote:

> `UnsatisfiedLinkError` is not an `Exception`. It's just a `Throwable`.

Good point.  I wonder what the intent of that exception handling code is, then.  I assumed it was to silently fall back to using the pure Java code in the event a library was un-loadable / not present, etc.  In this particular case, it's almost essential that this happens, because otherwise a JDK with this feature compiled in and distributed to a machine without libkrb5 installed would basically be unable to use anything that called the `Credentials` class methods.

Looking at the code further: `ensureLoaded()` calls only `System.loadLibrary()`, which only throws the following checked exceptions:

SecurityException
UnsatisfiedLinkError
NullPointerException

Of those, the libname is always a static string, so that just leaves the first two (or another `RuntimeException`).  Either of those will yield an un-loadable library, but the first will be swallowed.  Does that mean the code above should also catch the `UnsatisfiedLinkError`?

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PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/28075#issuecomment-3549093006