Spring Boot Jersey - Missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory when running java -jar command

Question

I am having trouble with a Spring Boot Jersey application when running it with java -jar command. When I run the main class from IntelliJ it works just fine. I therefor assumed this could be a classpath issue, but I have used the maven-assembly-plugin, and all the Spring-classes seems to be there.

I have the: spring-boot-starter-web, spring-boot-jersey, spring-boot-starter-tomcat on classpath and for the rest of Spring boot I have included this:

    <dependency>
        <!-- Import dependency management from Spring Boot -->
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.8.RELEASE</version>
        <type>pom</type>
        <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>

My assembly plugin configuration is as follows:

            <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.5</version>
            <!-- nothing here -->
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.4.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <descriptorRefs>
                    <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
                </descriptorRefs>
                <archive>
                    <manifest>
                        <mainClass>org.online.auth.conf.ApplicationMain</mainClass>
                    </manifest>
                </archive>
            </configuration>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <phase>package</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>single</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>

When I extract the jar file I find that all Spring dependencies are there (EmbeddedServletContainer and it's subclasses (Tomcat/Jetty)).

The start-up log displays the following error message:

:: Spring Boot ::

2014-11-03 12:46:38.394  INFO 1264 --- [           main] org.online.auth.conf.ApplicationMain     : Starting ApplicationMain on R9013DA2 with PID 1264 (C:\projects\online\online-authentication-rest\target\online-authentication-rest-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar started by thomasa in C:\projects\online\online-authentication-rest\target)
2014-11-03 12:46:38.396 DEBUG 1264 --- [           main] o.s.boot.SpringApplication               : Loading source class com.online.auth.conf.ApplicationMain
2014-11-03 12:46:38.412 DEBUG 1264 --- [           main] o.s.b.c.c.ConfigFileApplicationListener  : Skipped config file 'file:./config/application.yml' resource not found
2014-11-03 12:46:38.416 DEBUG 1264 --- [           main] o.s.b.c.c.ConfigFileApplicationListener  : Loaded config file 'classpath:/application.properties'
2014-11-03 13:36:23.613  INFO 9732 --- [           main] ationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext : Refreshing org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext@43738a82: startup date [Mon Nov 03 13:36:23 CET 2014]; root of context hierarchy
2014-11-03 13:36:23.614 DEBUG 9732 --- [           main] ationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext : Bean factory for   org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.AnnotationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext@43738a82: org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory@25b485ba: 
defining beans            [org.springframework.context.annotation.internalConfigurationAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework    .context.annotation.internalAutowiredAnnotationProcessor,
org.springframework.context.annotation.internalRequiredAnnotationProcessor,org.springframework.conte    xt.annotation.internalCommonAnnotationProcessor,applicationMain]; root of factory hierarchy

2014-11-03 13:36:23.787  INFO 9732 --- [           main]     a.ConfigurationClassBeanDefinitionReader : Skipping bean definition for     [BeanMethod:name=basicHttpCredentialsUtil,declaringClass=no.safetel.online.auth.AppConfigSpringSecur        ity]: a definition for bean 'basicHttpCredentialsUtil' already exists. 
This top-level bean definition is considered as an override.
2014-11-03 13:36:23.873  INFO 9732 --- [           main] f.a.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor : JSR-330 'javax.inject.Inject' annotation found and supported for autowiring
2014-11-03 13:36:23.888 DEBUG 9732 --- [           main] ationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext : Unable to locate MessageSource with name 'messageSource': using default [org.springframework.context.support.DelegatingMessageSource@2dde1bff]
2014-11-03 13:36:23.888 DEBUG 9732 --- [           main] ationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext : Using ApplicationEventMulticaster [org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster@15bbf42f]
2014-11-03 13:36:23.894  WARN 9732 --- [           main] ationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext : Exception encountered during context initialization - cancelling refresh attempt

org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start embedded container; nested exception is org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext due to missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory bean.
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.onRefresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:124)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:476)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.refresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:109)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:691)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:320)

I have tried to explicitly define an EmbeddedServletContainerFactory but that just gave me another exception with a message saying A ServletContext is required to configure default servlet handling.

Any help on this issue would be much appreciated!

Edit!

I tried to print every bean that is created by the container by implementing BeanPostProcessor:

@ComponentScan
@EnableAutoConfiguration(exclude = {
    DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class,
    DataSourceInitializer.class,
    DataSourceTransactionManagerAutoConfiguration.class,
    SecurityAutoConfiguration.class})
 public class ApplicationMain extends SpringBootServletInitializer implements BeanPostProcessor     {

public static void main(String[] args) {
    ConfigurableApplicationContext context = SpringApplication.run(ApplicationMain.class, args);
}

@Override
public Object postProcessBeforeInitialization(Object bean, String beanName) throws BeansException {
    System.out.println("\t\tbean: "+ beanName);
    return bean;
}

}

Running this in IntelliJ gives me the following output:

2014-11-03 16:11:26.348  INFO 13548 --- [           main] trationDelegate$BeanPostProcessorChecker : Bean 'metaDataSourceAdvisor' of type [class org.springframework.security.access.intercept.aopalliance.MethodSecurityMetadataSourceAdvisor] is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying)
    bean: org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.EmbeddedServletContainerAutoConfiguration$EmbeddedTomcat
    bean: tomcatEmbeddedServletContainerFactory
    bean: org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.ServerPropertiesAutoConfiguration
    bean: org.hibernate.validator.internal.constraintvalidators.NotNullValidator
    bean: serverProperties
    bean: org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration
2014-11-03 16:11:26.889  INFO 13548 --- [           main] .t.TomcatEmbeddedServletContainerFactory : Server initialized with port: 8080

Running the jar file with the java command gives me the following output:

2014-11-03 16:01:36.302  INFO 6704 --- [           main]   trationDelegate$BeanPostProcessorChecker : Bean 'metaDataSourceAdvisor' of type [class org.springframework.security.access.intercept.aopalliance.MethodSecurityMetadataSourceAdvisor] is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors (for example: not eligible for auto-proxying)
2014-11-03 16:01:36.310  WARN 6704 --- [           main] ationConfigEmbeddedWebApplicationContext : Exception encountered during context initialization - cancelling refresh attempt

org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start embedded container; nested exception is org.springframework.context.ApplicationContextException: Unable to start EmbeddedWebApplicationContext due to missing EmbeddedServletContainerFactory bean.
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.onRefresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:124)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:476)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.refresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:109)

Any help would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

I finally figured it out after reading the documentation more thoroughly. The Spring docs clearly states that you need to use the spring-boot-maven-plugin in the build section of your pom.xml.

<build>
    <plugins>
       <plugin>
           <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
           <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
       </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>  

I have also added a property which declares the main-class:

<properties>
   <start-class>org.online.auth.ApplicationMain</start-class>
</properties>

Hope this can be of help for others.