In Java standalone application, you can use -D option to pass in the system properties :

$ java -Dgeoip.file="/home/mkyong/geoip/test.db" test.jar

In Java web application, you can pass the system properties via context-param in web.xml :

<web-app>
	<context-param>
	    <param-name>geoip.file</param-name>
	    <param-value>/home/mkyong/geoip/test.db</param-value>
	</context-param>
</web-app>