Liberty Gradle Plug-in 3.0-M1
Version 3.0-M1 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin introduces new functionality and configurations. When moving from 2.x, there are new features and behavior differences to take into consideration when updating your project.
The plugin is available under the new io.openliberty.tools group id in the Maven Central repository.
New capabilities in the liberty-gradle-plugin
There are new capabilities available in the liberty-gradle-plugin that you might what to use when moving to release 3.0-M1 of the plug-in.
Dev Mode
There is a new libertyDev task that starts a Liberty server in dev mode. Dev mode provides three key features. Code changes are detected, recompiled, and picked up by your running server. Tests are run on demand when you press Enter in the command terminal where dev mode is running, or optionally on every code change to give you instant feedback on the status of your code. Finally, it allows you to attach a debugger to the running server at any time to step through your code.
Liberty configuration with Gradle project properties
Support is added to specify Liberty configuration using Gradle project properties as described in the Server extension properties. This provides an easy mechanism to override or add Liberty configuration from the command line or as Gradle project properties in the build.gradle file or gradle.properties file. The new properties are env for specifying server.env variables, defaultVar for specifying server variables with default values, and var for specifying server variables with values. The bootstrapProperties property is also changed from a Map to a Property object. The jvmOptions can also be specified or overridden using project properties. The libertyCreate task shows examples of using project properties for Liberty configuration.
Behavior differences in the liberty-gradle-plugin
Changes in property names and defaults for Server extension
In the past, the configFile, bootstrapPropertiesFile, jvmOptionsFile, and serverEnv Server extension properties had default values. Now these Server extension properties have no default values. If values are specified for these Server extension properties, they will take precedence over files located in the configDirectory. The configDirectory defaults to /src/main/liberty/config. Also, bootstrapProperties will take precedence over bootstrapPropertiesFile, and jvmOptions will take precedence over jvmOptionsFile. No merging is done.
| Previous property name | Previous default value | New property name | New default value |
|---|---|---|---|
| configFile | ${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config/server.xml |
serverXmlFile | None |
| bootstrapPropertiesFile | ${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config/bootstrap.properties |
bootstrapPropertiesFile | None |
| jvmOptionsFile | ${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config/jvm.options |
jvmOptionsFile | None |
| serverEnv | ${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config/server.env |
serverEnvFile | None |
Order of precedence (from highest to lowest):
- Inlined configuration - bootstrapProperties, jvmOptions
- Specified file - bootstrapPropertiesFile, jvmOptionsFile, serverEnvFile, serverXmlFile
- File located in
configDirectory(which defaults to${basedir}/src/main/liberty/config)
Moved properties from install block
The buildDir and cacheDir properties are moved from the install block to the general runtime properties.
Simplified server installation
In the past, if no libertyRuntime dependency or install block was specified, the latest Liberty runtime was installed from DHE. Now by default, the latest Open Liberty kernel is installed from Maven Central. The new liberty.runtime properties can be specified on the command line or as a Gradle project property to override the group, name or version of Liberty that is installed. These are general runtime properties shared by all goals.
Changed libertyPackage task
The libertyPackage task is changed. The new packageType property supports values zip, jar, tar, and tar.gz. The archive property is removed. The packageName, packageDirectory and packageType should be used instead. The serverRoot property is also added. When runnable is specified in the include property, the packageType defaults to jar. If jar is specified for packageType without runnable in the include property, a self-extracting jar file is created.
Changed deploy task and undeploy task and removed installApps task
The deploy task is changed to handle both copying and deploying of applications to a Liberty server, depending on the status of the server. If the server is not running, the applications are simply copied onto the server. If the server is running, the applications are deployed and verified to have started on the server. The installApps task is removed. For the undeploy task either the apps property or dropins property must be specified to indicate which tasks/files should be undeployed.