Jlink Maven Plugin

The Jlink Maven Plugin is using the jlink command to create Java Runtime with only the Java Runtime modules included which are required to run the builded project.

Due to the Java Desktop licence change and the new Java release cadence I’d the problem with a number of tiny Spring Boot application which are shipped in my company. To overcome these problems and delivery the independent application I’ve started this project to ship compressed Java Runtime which is fitting only the application.

Jdeps

To create your own Java Runtime which only contains the Java modules that are used in your application we have to use Java jdeps command which analyses a project and lists all Java module names. For that purpose this plugin is unpack the target jar and analyses all jar files (BOOT-INF/lib) and collects the Java module dependencies. With that information to hand we can create the Java Runtime with the jlink command

Problems (Todos)

• jdeps can’t analyse all jar files

• Spring Boot Maven Plugin - executable jar - can’t unpack executable jar

• Define variable for absolute output directory.

• Performance: slow execution due to calling the jdeps command on each jar independently

• Error handling

• user defined list of java modules

Usage

To use the jlink maven plugin you only have to add it in the plugin section. It will generate a folder called java_deploy which contains the generated Java Runtime environment, the target JAR file and a batch file (windows) to call the application.

<plugin>
	<groupId>com.giffing.jlink</groupId>
	<artifactId>jlink-maven-plugin</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.x</version>
	<executions>
		<execution>
			<phase>install</phase>
			<goals>
				<goal>jlink</goal>
			</goals>
		</execution>
	</executions>
</plugin>

<plugin>
	<groupId>com.giffing.jlink</groupId>
	<artifactId>jlink-maven-plugin</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.x</version>
	<executions>
		<execution>
			<phase>install</phase>
			<goals>
				<goal>jlink</goal>
			</goals>
			<configuration>
				<javaDirectory>C:/Program Files/Java/jdk-13/</javaDirectory>
			</configuration>
		</execution>
	</executions>
</plugin>