The default Debian sources doesn't include the latest OpenJDK but you can get it from . Here's a quick tip to install it in a container. jessie-backports First of all, get into your Docker daemon: debian:jessie docker pull debian:jessie jessie: Pulling from library/debian 10a267c67f42: Pull complete Digest: sha256:476959...c758245937 Status: Downloaded newer image for debian:jessie Now run a container that uses and and add sources to our sources: debian:jessie jessie-backports docker run -it debian:jessie /bin/bash ... echo 'deb jessie-backports main' \> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jessie-backports.list http://deb.debian.org/debian That is, insert to the file . indicates that the archive contains binary packages and where these can be found (here you could either specify the official or another ). Right after the URL we specify a distribution, which can be thought of as a release to target at. Here we target which contains more cutting-edge releases (see ). deb [http://deb](http://deb) ... /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jessie-backports.list deb .deb debian.org mirror jessie-backports https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/ Having that done, update your package lists with . What this does is essentially fetch information about the version of packages that can be fetched (it won't upgrade the packages you have installed though). apt update apt update -y Get:1 http://security.debian.org jessie/updates InRelease [63.1 kB] ... Get:3 http://deb.debian.org jessie-backports InRelease [166 kB] ... All packages are up to date. Now it's just a matter of targeting the distribution and installing 👌 jessie-backports openjdk8 apt install --target-release jessie-backports \openjdk-8-jre-headless \ca-certificates-java \--assume-yes Notice the use of . This allows us to target packages from (there's where is present). With we are not prompted for confirmations). --target-release jessie-backports openjdk8-jre-headless --assume-yes And that's it! Now you have the latest OpenJDK installed 👊 java -version openjdk version "1.8.0_131" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_131-8u131-b11-1~bpo8+1-b11) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.131-b11, mixed mode) Below is a that installs OpenJDK following what was discussed here. You can build it using (where indicates the directory where you put the ). Dockerfile docker build --tag <image_name> . . Dockerfile And that's it! If you have any questions, let me know! Follow me on Twitter if you wish to get in touch and have some updates about this kind of things ✌️ . twitter.com/beld_pro 🎩