Java Distribution Gradle Plugin

Similar to the standard application plugin, this plugin facilitates packaging Gradle projects for easy distribution and execution. This distribution chooses different packaging conventions that attempt to split immutable files from mutable state and configuration.

In particular, this plugin packages a project into a common deployment structure with a simple start script, daemonizing script, and, a manifest describing the content of the package. The package will follow this structure:

[service-name]-[service-version]/
    deployment/
        manifest.yaml            # simple package manifest
    service/
        bin/
            [service-name]       # start script
            [service-name.bat]   # Windows start script
            init.sh              # daemonizing script
        lib/
            [jars]
    var/
        # application configuration and data

Packages are produced as gzipped tar names [service-name]-[project-version].tgz.

Usage

Apply the plugin using standard gradle convention:

plugins {
    id 'com.palantir.java-distribution'
}

Set the service name, main class, and optionally the arguments to pass to the program for a default run configuration:

distribution {
    serviceName 'my-service'
    mainClass 'com.palantir.foo.bar.MyServiceMainClass'
    args 'server', 'var/conf/my-service.yml'
}

The distribution block offers the following options:

• serviceName the name of this service, used to construct the final artifact's file name.
• mainClass class containing the entry point to start the program.
• (optional) args a list of arguments to supply when running start.
• (optional) defaultJvmOpts a list of default JVM options to set on the program.
• (optional) enableManifestClasspath a boolean flag; if set to true, then the explicit Java classpath is omitted from the generated Windows start script and instead infered from a JAR file whose MANIFEST contains the classpath entries

Packaging

To create a compressed, gzipped tar file, run the distTar task.

As part of package creation, this plugin will create two shell scripts:

• service/bin/[service-name]: a Gradle default start script for running the defined mainClass
• service/bin/init.sh: a shell script to assist with daemonizing a JVM process. The script takes a single argument of start, stop, or status.
  • start: On calls to service/bin/init.sh start, service/bin/[serviceName] [args] will be executed, disowned, and a pid file recorded in var/run/[service-name].pid.
  • status: returns 0 when var/run/[service-name].pid exists and a process the id recorded in that file with a command matching the expected start command is found in the process table.
  • stop: if the process status is 0, issues a kill signal to the process.

In addition to creating these scripts, this plugin will merge the entire contents of ${projectDir}/service and ${projectDir}/var into the package.

Running with Gradle

To run the main class using Gradle, run the run task.

Tasks

• distTar: creates the gzipped tar package
• createStartScripts: generates standard Java start scripts
• createInitScript: generates daemonizing init.sh script
• createManifest: generates a simple yaml file describing the package content
• run: runs the specified mainClass with default args