Liberty Gradle Plugin 3.1-M3 Pre-release

Version 3.1-M3 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin is a pre-release milestone. It contains a technology preview of the libertyDevc task, plus some fixes detailed below.

This pre-release milestone includes a technology preview of the new libertyDevc task for Liberty Dev mode to start the server in a Docker container. The features and attributes supported by this task are subject to change in future milestones or releases of the Liberty Gradle Plugin. Refer to the docs for the libertyDevc task for more information.

The following fixes are also included in this pre-release milestone.

• Added dev mode support for applications configured as ear or war files without requiring loose application.
• Added an option to specify the Docker build timeout for the libertyDevc task.
• Added an option to skip binding default HTTP/HTTPS ports for the libertyDevc task to avoid port conflicts.
• Added support for multiple concurrent instances of the libertyDevc task when run on different projects.
• Using container related parameters with the libertyDev task no longer forces container mode to be true.
• Fixed an issue on Linux where the target directory could not be cleaned after running the libertyDevc task.
• Improved the display of Docker output messages during the libertyDevc task.
• Improved dev mode startup messages.
• Added a way to restart the server or container within dev mode.
• Fixed a NullPointerException for the installFeature task.
• Made some fixes to the mergeServerEnv behavior.
• Use the correct combined bootstrap properties (from properties and parameters) when checking for application configuration and status.

See the commit log for the full set of the changes.

The Liberty Gradle Plugin 3.1-M3 pre-release milestone is available on the Maven Central repository.

Liberty Gradle Plugin 3.1-M2 Pre-release

Version 3.1-M2 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin is a pre-release milestone. It contains a technology preview of the libertyDevc task, plus some fixes detailed below.

This pre-release milestone includes a technology preview of the new libertyDevc task for Liberty Dev mode to start the server in a Docker container. The features and attributes supported by this task are subject to change in future milestones or releases of the Liberty Gradle Plugin. Refer to the docs for the libertyDevc task for more information.

The following fixes are also included in this pre-release milestone.

• Linux is supported for the libertyDevc task when running as either root or non-root user.
• Fixed an issue when using the libertyDevc task and changing configuration files on Linux.
• Fixed some issues where the libertyDevc task was not displaying error messages from Docker or Liberty.
• Fixed the mergeServerEnv support by changing incorrect references from appendServerEnv to mergeServerEnv.
• Added some clean up code to delete copied and generated config files in the target server before copying or generating new config files.
• Fixed an issue where the plugin could not be applied through the plugins block. Added the liberty-ant and liberty-common dependencies to the buildscript classpath.

See the commit log for the full set of the changes.

The Liberty Gradle Plugin 3.1-M2 pre-release milestone is available on the Maven Central repository.

Liberty Gradle Plug-in 3.1-M1 Pre-release

Version 3.1-M1 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin is a pre-release milestone. It contains a technology preview of the libertyDevc task, plus some enhancements and fixes detailed below.

This pre-release milestone includes a technology preview of the new libertyDevc task for Liberty Dev mode to start the server in a Docker container. The features and attributes supported by this task are subject to change in future milestones or releases of the Liberty Gradle Plugin. Both macOS and Windows are supported. Linux is supported for the libertyDevc task when running as root user. Refer to the docs for the libertyDevc task for more information.

The following enhancements and fixes are also included in this pre-release milestone.

• Added support for the copyLibsDirectory attribute on the deploy task.
• Added support for merging server environment properties with an existing server.env file. See the mergeServerEnv attribute in the server extension properties for more information.
• Added testing with version 20.0.0.6 of Open Liberty and WebSphere Liberty.
• The uninstallFeature task now uninstalls features individually to improve error handling.
• The compileJsp task now includes the configured features in the Liberty server during the compilation.
• Fixed the configureArquillian task to look for variables in the generated variable configuration file.

See the commit log for the full set of the changes.

The Liberty Gradle Plugin 3.1-M1 pre-release milestone is available on the Maven Central repository.

Liberty Gradle Plug-in 3.0

The enhancements and changes for the Liberty Gradle Plug-in 3.0 release are described in the 3.0-M1 release notes.

Additional minor fixes are included, as well as most deprecation warnings are addressed when running with version 6.x of Gradle. Two deprecation warnings remain related to baseName property and the libertyRuntimeConfiguration property and will be addressed in a future release.

Please take note that the plugin is now available under the new io.openliberty.tools group id in the Maven Central repository.

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
  • Dev Mode
  • Liberty configuration with Gradle project properties
• Behavior differences in the liberty-gradle-plugin
  • Changes in property names and defaults for Server extension
  • Moved properties from install block
  • Simplified server installation
  • Changed libertyPackage task
  • Changed deploy task and undeploy task and removed installApps task

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):

1. Inlined configuration - bootstrapProperties, jvmOptions
2. Specified file - bootstrapPropertiesFile, jvmOptionsFile, serverEnvFile, serverXmlFile
3. 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.

Liberty Gradle Plugin 2.7

Version 2.7 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin provides the following changes:

• Ability to run server in embedded mode
• noPassword option used when creating the server
• configDirectory now defaults to /src/main/liberty/config
• Eclipse will now use the same output directory as Gradle

See the commit log for the full set of the changes.

The Liberty Gradle Plugin 2.7 release is available on the Maven Central repository.

Liberty Gradle Plugin 2.6.5

Version 2.6.5 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin provides the following key bugfixes:

• Fixed an issue where the liberty-plugin-config.xml file was not being created inside the build directory of subprojects when the Liberty installation was located outside of the subproject's build directory.
• Updated the version of ci.common.

See the commit log for the full set of the changes.

The Liberty Gradle Plugin 2.6.5 release is available on the Maven Central repository.

Liberty Gradle Plugin 2.6.4

Version 2.6.4 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin should not be used. It contains a snapshot dependency that will not resolve causing builds to break.

Liberty Gradle Plugin 2.6.3

Version 2.6.3 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin contains a bug fix for a missing build directory when the Liberty installation directory was located outside of the project's build directory.

Liberty Gradle Plugin 2.6.2

Version 2.6.2 of the Liberty Gradle Plugin adds support for Gradle versions 5.x