How do I run a spring boot executable jar in a Production environment?

Please note that since Spring Boot 1.3.0.M1, you are able to build fully executable jars using Maven and Gradle.

For Maven, just include the following in your pom.xml:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <executable>true</executable>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

For Gradle add the following snippet to your build.gradle:

springBoot {
    executable = true
}

The fully executable jar contains an extra script at the front of the file, which allows you to just symlink your Spring Boot jar to init.d or use a systemd script.

init.d example:

$ln -s /var/yourapp/yourapp.jar /etc/init.d/yourapp

This allows you to start, stop and restart your application like:

$/etc/init.d/yourapp start|stop|restart

Or use a systemd script:

[Unit]
Description=yourapp
After=syslog.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/var/yourapp/yourapp.jar
User=yourapp
WorkingDirectory=/var/yourapp
SuccessExitStatus=143

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

More information at the following links:

• Installation as an init.d service
• Installation as a systemd service

By far the most easiest and reliable way to run Spring Boot applications in production is with Docker. Use Docker Compose, Docker Swarm or Kubernetes if you need to use multiple connected services.

Here's a simple Dockerfile from the official Spring Boot Docker guide to get you started:

FROM openjdk:8-jdk-alpine
RUN addgroup -S spring && adduser -S spring -G spring
USER spring:spring
ARG JAR_FILE=target/*.jar
COPY ${JAR_FILE} app.jar
ENTRYPOINT ["java","-jar","/app.jar"]

An even better approach for building Docker images is to use Jib, an open-source Java tool maintained by Google for building Docker images of Java applications. Jib does not need a Dockerfile, you just invoke it with Maven (official quickstart here) or Gradle (official quickstart here).

Here's a sample command line to run the container as a daemon:

docker run \
  -d --restart=always \
  -e "SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=prod" \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  prefix/imagename

My Spring boot application has two initializers. One for development and another for production. For development, I use the main method like this:

@SpringBootApplication
public class MyAppInitializer {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(MyAppInitializer .class, args);
    }

}

My Initializer for production environment extends the SpringBootServletInitializer and looks like this:

@SpringBootApplication
public class MyAppInitializerServlet extends SpringBootServletInitializer{
    private static final Logger log = Logger
            .getLogger(SpringBootServletInitializer.class);
    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(
            SpringApplicationBuilder builder) {
        log.trace("Initializing the application");
        return builder.sources(MyAppInitializerServlet .class);
    }

}

I use gradle and my build.gradle file applies 'WAR' plugin. When I run it in the development environment, I use bootrun task. Where as when I want to deploy it to production, I use assemble task to generate the WAR and deploy.

I can run like a normal spring application in production without discounting the advantages provided by the inbuilt tomcat while developing. Hope this helps.

On Windows OS without Service.

start.bat

@ECHO OFF
call run.bat start

stop.bat:

@ECHO OFF
call run.bat stop

run.bat

@ECHO OFF
IF "%1"=="start" (
    ECHO start myapp
    start "myapp" java -jar -Dspring.profiles.active=staging myapp.jar
) ELSE IF "%1"=="stop" (
    ECHO stop myapp
    TASKKILL /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq myapp"
) ELSE (
    ECHO please, use "run.bat start" or "run.bat stop"
)
pause

In a production environment you want your app to be started again on a machine restart etc, creating a /etc/init.d/ script and linking to the appropriate runlevel to start and stop it is the correct approach. Spring Boot will not extend to covering this as it is a operating system specific setup and the are tonnes of other options, do you want it running in a chroot jail, does it need to stop / start before some other software etc.