create a executable jar using maven and jetty

Question

I want to start my application using jetty, so I have added the dependency mentioned below. and when I run the main method Jetty starts successfully.(I am working on a struts2+spring3+ hibernate maven project, i am able to deploy it in tomcat too)

Now I want to create a executable jar from a war packaging pom. So i added maven-assembly-plugin to my pom. (I tried with maven jar plug-in but it was not adding the dependencies)

Sources

plugins

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.3</version>
        <configuration>
                 <archive>
            <manifest>
        <mainClass>com.dca.engine.StartDCA</mainClass>
            </manifest>
             </archive>
        <packagingExcludes>WEB-INF/lib/jetty*.jar,WEB-INF/lib/org.apache.taglibs.standard.glassfish*.jar,WEB-INF/lib/org.apache.jasper.glassfish*.jar,WEB-INF/lib/org.eclipse.jdt.core*.jar,WEB-INF/lib/javax.servlet.jsp*.jar,WEB-INF/lib/javax.el*.jar</packagingExcludes>
        <escapeString>\</escapeString>
        </configuration>
       </plugin>
       <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.4</version>
        <configuration>
                 <descriptorRefs>
                        <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
                 </descriptorRefs>
             <archive>
            <manifest>
        <mainClass>com.dca.engine.StartDCA</mainClass>
            </manifest>
             </archive>
        </configuration>
        <executions>
             <execution>
                    <id>make-assembly</id>
                    <phase>package</phase>
                    <goals>
                      <goal>single</goal>
                    </goals>
             </execution>
        </executions>
    </plugin>
 </plugins>
<resources>
    <resource>
        <directory>src/main/java</directory>
        <includes>
        <include>**/*.java</include>
        <include>**/*.xml</include>
        </includes>
    </resource>
    <resource>
        <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
        <filtering>true</filtering>
    </resource>
</resources>
</build>

Embedded Jetty

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
    <artifactId>jetty-server</artifactId>
    <version>8.1.10.v20130312</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
    <artifactId>jetty-webapp</artifactId>
    <version>8.1.10.v20130312</version>
    <!-- <scope>provided</scope> -->
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
    <artifactId>jetty-jsp</artifactId>
    <version>8.1.10.v20130312</version>
    <!-- <scope>provided</scope>  -->
</dependency> 

main method

 Server server = new Server(8080);
        System.setProperty("is_DCA", "YES");
        WebAppContext webAppContext = new WebAppContext();
        webAppContext.setResourceBase("/home/myfolder/workspace/app/dca/src/main/webapp");
        webAppContext.setDescriptor("/home/myfolder/workspace/app/dca/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml");
        webAppContext.setContextPath("/app");
        server.setHandler(webAppContext);
        server.start();
        server.join();

Starting the application

I run the created jar with java -jar /home/myfolder/workspace/app/dca/target/app-dca-1.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar

jetty starts with exception.

INFO  10-12 15:03:01,609 - jetty-8.y.z-SNAPSHOT
INFO  10-12 15:03:01,776 - Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext
INFO  10-12 15:03:01,776 - Root WebApplicationContext: initialization started
INFO  10-12 15:03:01,843 - Refreshing Root WebApplicationContext: startup date [Tue Dec 10 15:03:01 IST 2013]; root of context hierarchy
INFO  10-12 15:03:01,885 - Loading XML bean definitions from class path resource [applicationContext-dca.xml]
ERROR 10-12 15:03:05,725 - Context initialization failed
org.springframework.beans.factory.parsing.BeanDefinitionParsingException: Configuration problem: Unable to locate Spring NamespaceHandler for XML schema namespace [http://www.springframework.org/schema/util]
Offending resource: class path resource [applicationContext-dca.xml]

    at org.springframework.beans.factory.parsing.FailFastProblemReporter.error(FailFastProblemReporter.java:68)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.parsing.ReaderContext.error(ReaderContext.java:85)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.parsing.ReaderContext.error(ReaderContext.java:80)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.BeanDefinitionParserDelegate.error(BeanDefinitionParserDelegate.java:316)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.BeanDefinitionParserDelegate.parseCustomElement(BeanDefinitionParserDelegate.java:1420)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.BeanDefinitionParserDelegate.parseCustomElement(BeanDefinitionParserDelegate.java:1413)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.DefaultBeanDefinitionDocumentReader.parseBeanDefinitions(DefaultBeanDefinitionDocumentReader.java:184)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.DefaultBeanDefinitionDocumentReader.doRegisterBeanDefinitions(DefaultBeanDefinitionDocumentReader.java:140)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.DefaultBeanDefinitionDocumentReader.registerBeanDefinitions(DefaultBeanDefinitionDocumentReader.java:111)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.registerBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:493)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.doLoadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:390)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:334)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.XmlBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(XmlBeanDefinitionReader.java:302)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:174)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.loadBeanDefinitions(AbstractBeanDefinitionReader.java:209)

Is there a possible way that i can start jetty using the war created. It has jars in /WEB-INF/lib/ folder, all properties file and xml files are in /WEB-INF/lib/ and I tried running the war

java -jar /home/myfolder/workspace/app/dca/target/app-dca-1.0.war

but it was not able to locate the main class.

worked when created executable war check sumit's answer

I was getting the exception as in this question. when I replaced jetty version to 7.6.7.v20120910 it worked

i dont know why it didn't worked with jetty 8.1.10.v20130312

Answer 1

Take a look at http://uguptablog.blogspot.com/2012/09/embedded-jetty-executable-war-with.html

The relevant code is

    ProtectionDomain domain = Main.class.getProtectionDomain();
    URL location = domain.getCodeSource().getLocation();
    WebAppContext webapp = new WebAppContext();
    webapp.setContextPath("/");
    webapp.setWar(location.toExternalForm());
    server.setHandler(webapp);

hope that helps.

Answer 2

Instead of hacking the contents of a WAR file, as the accepted answer seems to be doing, you can create an executable JAR file using the maven-shade-plugin. This has the following advantages:

• The plugin contains "transformers" for merging the contents of META-INF/services, LICENSE and README files.
• You end up with a JAR file. WAR files were not designed to be executable (although it works).
• By unpacking all dependencies into the same JAR file, you are forced to remove duplicate classes and make the contents harder to reverse-engineer.

Answer 3

If you are not tied to using Jetty but are open to using Tomcat instead, the following will work beautifully:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.maven</groupId>
    <artifactId>tomcat7-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.0</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>tomcat-run</id>
            <goals>
                <goal>exec-war-only</goal>
            </goals>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <configuration>
                <path>/standalone</path>
                <enableNaming>false</enableNaming>
                <finalName>standalone.jar</finalName>
                <charset>utf-8</charset>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

This will create an uberjar called "standalone.jar" that you can then run simply by calling

java -jar standalone.jar

this will start the application on http://localhost:8080/standalone

Selecting an alternate port is easy

java -jar standalone.jar -httpPort=7070

Thanks to Tomasz Nurkiewicz's blog entry for highlighting this http://www.nurkiewicz.com/2012/11/standalone-web-application-with.html

Answer 4

The simpliest way I know (but never tried) is the winstone-maven-plugin, like Jenkins CI do (what a better example :D). It doesn't use Jetty (even I love this tool :D), but Winstone.

Maven Plugin Usage

<plugin>
    <groupId>net.sf.alchim</groupId>
    <artifactId>winstone-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>embed</goal>
            </goals>
            <phase>package</phase>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Quite easy, isn't it ? :) It would generate a executable - standalone - jar : app-dca-1.0-standalone.jar

Documentation

• Winstone Servlet Container : http://winstone.sourceforge.net/
• Winstone Maven plugin : http://alchim.sourceforge.net/winstone-maven-plugin/usage.html
• A full example : http://www.jayway.com/2008/11/28/executable-war-with-winstone-maven-plugin/