fabric8/s2i-java

By fabric8

Updated over 4 years ago

S2I Builder Image for plain Java applications

Image

50M+

CentOS S2I Java builder for OpenJDK 8 and OpenJDK 11

This is a S2I builder image for Java builds whose result can be run directly without any further application server. It's suited ideally for microservices with a flat classpath (including "far jars").

It's based on CentOS and supports Java 8 and 11. Check the available tags to chose the proper Java version.

This image also provides an easy integration with an Jolokia agent. See below how to configure this.

The following environment variables can be used to influence the behaviour of this builder image:

Build Time

  • MAVEN_ARGS Arguments to use when calling Maven, replacing the default package hawt-app:build -DskipTests -e. Please be sure to run the hawt-app:build goal (when not already bound to the package execution phase), otherwise the startup scripts won't work.
  • MAVEN_ARGS_APPEND Additional Maven arguments, useful for temporary adding arguments like -X or -am -pl ..
  • ARTIFACT_DIR Path to target/ where the jar files are created for multi module builds. These are added to ${MAVEN_ARGS}
  • ARTIFACT_COPY_ARGS Arguments to use when copying artifacts from the output dir to the application dir. Useful to specify which artifacts will be part of the image. It defaults to -r hawt-app/* when a hawt-app dir is found on the build directory, otherwise jar files only will be included (*.jar).
  • MAVEN_CLEAR_REPO If set then the Maven repository is removed after the artifact is built. This is useful for keeping the created application image small, but prevents incremental builds. The default is false

Run Time

run-java.sh

This general purpose startup script is optimized for running Java application from within containers. It is called like

./run-java.sh <sub-command> <options>

run-java.sh knows two sub-commands:

  • options to print out JVM option which can be used for own invocation of Java apps (like Maven or Tomcat). It respects container constraints and includes all magic which is used by this script
  • run executes a Java application as described below. This is also the default command so you can skip adding this command.
Running a Java application

When no subcommand is given (or when you provide the default subcommand run), then by default this scripts starts up Java application.

The startup process is configured mostly via environment variables:

  • JAVA_APP_DIR the directory where the application resides. All paths in your application are relative to this directory. By default it is the same directory where this startup script resides.
  • JAVA_LIB_DIR directory holding the Java jar files as well an optional classpath file which holds the classpath. Either as a single line classpath (colon separated) or with jar files listed line-by-line. If not set JAVA_LIB_DIR is the same as JAVA_APP_DIR.
  • JAVA_OPTIONS options to add when calling java
  • JAVA_MAJOR_VERSION can be 7,8 or 9. If the version is set then only options suitable for this version are used. Actually only 7 is required to set to remove some options known only to Java > 8
  • JAVA_MAX_MEM_RATIO is used when no -Xmx option is given in JAVA_OPTIONS. This is used to calculate a default maximal Heap Memory based on a containers restriction. If used in a Docker container without any memory constraints for the container then this option has no effect. If there is a memory constraint then -Xmx is set to a ratio of the container available memory as set here. The default is 25 when the maximum amount of memory available to the container is below 300M, 50 otherwise, which means in that case that 50% of the available memory is used as an upper boundary. You can skip this mechanism by setting this value to 0 in which case no -Xmx option is added.
  • JAVA_INIT_MEM_RATIO is used when no -Xms option is given in JAVA_OPTIONS. This is used to calculate a default initial Heap Memory based on a containers restriction. If used in a Docker container without any memory constraints for the container then this option has no effect. If there is a memory constraint then -Xms is set to a ratio of the container available memory as set here. By default this value is not set.
  • JAVA_MAX_CORE restrict manually the number of cores available which is used for calculating certain defaults like the number of garbage collector threads. If set to 0 no base JVM tuning based on the number of cores is performed.
  • JAVA_DIAGNOSTICS set this to get some diagnostics information to standard out when things are happening
  • JAVA_MAIN_CLASS A main class to use as argument for java. When this environment variable is given, all jar files in $JAVA_APP_DIR are added to the classpath as well as $JAVA_LIB_DIR.
  • JAVA_APP_JAR A jar file with an appropriate manifest so that it can be started with java -jar if no $JAVA_MAIN_CLASS is set. In all cases this jar file is added to the classpath, too.
  • JAVA_APP_NAME Name to use for the process
  • JAVA_CLASSPATH the classpath to use. If not given, the startup script checks for a file ${JAVA_APP_DIR}/classpath and use its content literally as classpath. If this file doesn't exists all jars in the app dir are added (classes:${JAVA_APP_DIR}/*).
  • JAVA_DEBUG If set remote debugging will be switched on
  • JAVA_DEBUG_SUSPEND If set enables suspend mode in remote debugging
  • JAVA_DEBUG_PORT Port used for remote debugging. Default: 5005
  • HTTP_PROXY The URL of the proxy server that translates into the http.proxyHost and http.proxyPort system properties.
  • HTTPS_PROXY The URL of the proxy server that translates into the https.proxyHost and https.proxyPort system properties.
  • no_proxy, NO_PROXY The list of hosts that should be reached directly, bypassing the proxy, that translates into the http.nonProxyHosts system property.

If neither $JAVA_APP_JAR nor $JAVA_MAIN_CLASS is given, $JAVA_APP_DIR is checked for a single JAR file which is taken as $JAVA_APP_JAR. If no or more then one jar file is found, an error is thrown.

The classpath is build up with the following parts:

  • If $JAVA_CLASSPATH is set, this classpath is taken.
  • The current directory (".") is added first.
  • If the current directory is not the same as $JAVA_APP_DIR, $JAVA_APP_DIR is added.
  • If $JAVA_MAIN_CLASS is set, then
    • A $JAVA_APP_JAR is added if set
    • If a file $JAVA_APP_DIR/classpath exists, its content is appended to the classpath. This file can be either a single line with the jar files colon separated or a multi-line file where each line holds the path of the jar file relative to $JAVA_LIB_DIR (which by default is the $JAVA_APP_DIR)
    • If this file is not set, a ${JAVA_APP_DIR}/* is added which effectively adds all jars in this directory in alphabetical order.

These variables can be also set in a shell config file run-env.sh, which will be sourced by the startup script. This file can be located in the directory where the startup script is located and in ${JAVA_APP_DIR}, whereas environment variables in the latter override the ones in run-env.sh from the script directory.

This startup script also checks for a command run-java-options. If existent it will be called and the output is added to the environment variable $JAVA_OPTIONS.

The startup script also exposes some environment variables describing container limits which can be used by applications:

Any arguments given to the script are given through directly as argument to the Java application.

Example:

# Set the application directory directly
export JAVA_APP_DIR=/deployments
# Set -Xmx based on container constraints
export JAVA_MAX_MEM_RATIO=40
# Start the jar in JAVA_APP_DIR with the given arguments
./run-java.sh --user maxmorlock --password secret
Options

This script can also be used to calculate reasonable, best-practice options for starting Java apps in general. For example, when running Maven in a container it makes sense to respect container Memory constraints.

The subcommand options can be used to print options to standard output so that is can be easily used to feed it to another, Java based application.

When no extra arguments are given, all defaults will be used, which can be influenced with the environment variables described above.

You can select specific sets of options by providing additional arguments:

  • --debug : Java debug options if JAVA_DEBUG is set
  • --memory : Memory settings based on the environment variables given
  • --proxy : Evaluate proxy environments variables
  • --cpu : Tuning when the number of cores is limited
  • --gc : GC tuning parameters
  • --jit : JIT options
  • --diagnostics : Print diagnostics options when JAVA_DIAGNOSTICS is set
  • --java-default : Same as --memory --jit --diagnostic --cpu --gc

Example:

# Call Maven with the proper memory settings when running in an container
export MAVEN_OPTS="$(run-java.sh options --memory)"
mvn clean install

Jolokia configuration

  • AB_JOLOKIA_OFF : If set disables activation of Jolokia (i.e. echos an empty value). By default, Jolokia is enabled.
  • AB_JOLOKIA_CONFIG : If set uses this file (including path) as Jolokia JVM agent properties (as described in Jolokia's reference manual). If not set, the /opt/jolokia/etc/jolokia.properties will be created using the settings as defined in this document, otherwise the reset of the settings in this document are ignored.
  • AB_JOLOKIA_HOST : Host address to bind to (Default: 0.0.0.0)
  • AB_JOLOKIA_PORT : Port to use (Default: 8778)
  • AB_JOLOKIA_USER : User for basic authentication. Defaults to 'jolokia'
  • AB_JOLOKIA_PASSWORD : Password for basic authentication. By default authentication is switched off.
  • AB_JOLOKIA_PASSWORD_RANDOM : Should a random AB_JOLOKIA_PASSWORD be generated? Generated value will be written to /opt/jolokia/etc/jolokia.pw
  • AB_JOLOKIA_HTTPS : Switch on secure communication with https. By default self signed server certificates are generated if no serverCert configuration is given in AB_JOLOKIA_OPTS
  • AB_JOLOKIA_ID : Agent ID to use ($HOSTNAME by default, which is the container id)
  • AB_JOLOKIA_DISCOVERY_ENABLED : Enable Jolokia discovery. Defaults to false.
  • AB_JOLOKIA_OPTS : Additional options to be appended to the agent configuration. They should be given in the format "key=value,key=value,..."

Some options for integration in various environments:

  • AB_JOLOKIA_AUTH_OPENSHIFT : Switch on client authentication for OpenShift TSL communication. The value of this parameter can be a relative distinguished name which must be contained in a presented client certificate. Enabling this parameter will automatically switch Jolokia into https communication mode. The default CA cert is set to /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/ca.crt

Application arguments can be provided by setting the variable JAVA_ARGS to the corresponding value.

Spring Boot Automatic Restarts

This image also supports detecting jars with Spring Boot devtools included, which allows automatic restarts when files on the classpath are updated. Files can be easily updated in OpenShift using command oc rsync.

To enable automatic restarts, three things are required:

  1. Add Spring Boot devtools dependency:
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
        <optional>true</optional>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>
  1. Add dependency to the generated fat jar by setting excludeDevtools configuration property to false:
<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <excludeDevtools>false</excludeDevtools>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>
  1. Set environment variables JAVA_DEBUG=true or DEBUG=true and optionally JAVA_DEBUG_PORT=<port-number> or DEBUG_PORT=<port-number>, which defaults to 5005. Since the DEBUG variable clashes with Spring Boot's recognition of the same variable to enable Spring Boot debug logging, use SPRINGBOOT_DEBUG instead.

WARNING: Do not use devtools in production!!! This can be accomplished in Maven using a custom profile.

Docker Pull Command

docker pull fabric8/s2i-java