Spring boot generated jar file just work inside root of project

Question

I am new in Spring boot and I think this issue is very basic.

I created an application using Spring Boot and everything is good in dev environment. But when I copy the jar file from target directory to another machine and run "java -jar" it doesn't render jsp pages with following error:

There was an unexpected error (type=Not Found, status=404)

when I copy src folder from project root to same location it works fine.

It seems the jar file just work from project's root.

Here is my configurations:

<dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

                <!-- Spring Boot Section -->
        <!-- Web -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.tomcat.embed</groupId>
            <artifactId>tomcat-embed-jasper</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>
    <build>
            <resources>
                <resource>
                    <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
                </resource>
                <resource>
                    <directory>src/main/webapp</directory>
                </resource>
            </resources>

            <plugins>

                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                    <executions>
                        <execution>
                            <goals>
                                <goal>repackage</goal>
                            </goals>
                        </execution>
                    </executions>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </build>

and my project structure:

and I run following at command line:

mvn clean package

I have following in my target directory:

I can run the application using

java -jar target/springboot-in-10-steps-0.0.1.jar

Application works as expected and it renders welcome page.

When I go to target directory and run same command:

java -jar springboot-in-10-steps-0.0.1.jar

Application gets launch but it doesn't render the welcome page.

When I copy src to target everything is fine and I can see welcome page. It seems Spring boot doesn't find WEB-INF/jsp directory in the jar file.

Did I miss something in spring boot configuration or application.properties?

Mehdi Mehdi · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-21T22:47:45

I could fix it by changing packaging from jar to war and interestingly this works:

java -jar springboot-in-10-steps-0.0.1.war

I think there are ways to change the structure of files and folders within generated jar file using repackage features.

Spring boot generated jar file just work inside root of project

1 Answers