websphere-liberty open-liberty liberty-maven-plugin

liberty:devc: <dockerfile> not being honored

I observe that the <dockerfile> element, though it points to a valid Dockerfile is not honored by liberty:devc.

Consider this output from mvn help:effective-pom:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <parent>
    <groupId>javaee-cafe</groupId>
    <artifactId>javaee-cafe-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <relativePath />
  </parent>
  <groupId>javaee-cafe</groupId>
  <artifactId>javaee-cafe-jcache</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.3</version>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <name>javaee-cafe-jcache</name>
  <properties>
    <dockerFileName>Dockerfile</dockerFileName>
    <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
    <!-- elided -->
    <usrDirectory>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr</usrDirectory>
  </properties>
  <dependencies><!-- elided --></dependencies>
  <build>
    <sourceDirectory>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/src/main/java</sourceDirectory>
    <!-- elided -->
    <resources>
      <resource>
        <filtering>true</filtering>
        <directory>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/src/main/resources</directory>
      </resource>
    </resources>
    <directory>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target</directory>
    <finalName>javaee-cafe-jcache</finalName>
    <plugins>
      <!-- elided -->
      <plugin>
        <groupId>io.openliberty.tools</groupId>
        <artifactId>liberty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.3.4</version>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>package-server</id>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>create</goal>
              <goal>install-feature</goal>
              <goal>deploy</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
              <container>true</container>
              <dockerfile>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/Dockerfile</dockerfile>
              <libertyRuntimeVersion>[21.0.0.5,)</libertyRuntimeVersion>
              <serverXmlFile>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/server.xml</serverXmlFile>
              <copyDependencies><!-- elided --></copyDependencies>
              <outputDirectory>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/wlp-package</outputDirectory>
            </configuration>
          </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
  </build>
</project>

When I run mvn liberty:devc I see this output:

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] -------------------< javaee-cafe:javaee-cafe-jcache >-------------------
[INFO] Building javaee-cafe-jcache 1.0.3
[INFO] --------------------------------[ war ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- liberty-maven-plugin:3.3.4:devc (default-cli) @ javaee-cafe-jcache ---
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using artifact based assembly archive : io.openliberty:openliberty-kernel:null:21.0.0.5:zip.
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using installDirectory : /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp.
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using serverName : defaultServer.
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using serverDirectory : /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer.
<!-- elided -->
[INFO] Running liberty:deploy
[INFO] The liberty.runtime.version property value [21.0.0.5,) is used for the runtimeArtifact version.
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using artifact based assembly archive : io.openliberty:openliberty-kernel:null:21.0.0.5:zip.
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using installDirectory : /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp.
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using serverName : defaultServer.
[INFO] CWWKM2102I: Using serverDirectory : /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer.
[INFO] Copying 1 file to /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer
[WARNING] The /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/src/main/liberty/config/server.xml file is overwritten by the /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/server.xml file.
[INFO] Copying 1 file to /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer
[INFO] CWWKM2144I: Update server configuration file server.xml from /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/server.xml.
[INFO] CWWKM2144I: Update server configuration file bootstrap.properties from inlined configuration.
<!-- elided -->
[INFO] CWWKM2185I: The liberty-maven-plugin configuration parameter "appsDirectory" value defaults to "apps".
[INFO] CWWKM2160I: Installing application javaee-cafe-jcache.war.xml.
[INFO] Parsing the server file /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/server.xml for features and includes.
[INFO] Copying 1 file to /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/liberty/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer
[INFO] CWWKM2144I: Update server configuration file server.xml from /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/src/main/liberty/config/server.xml.
[INFO] CWWKM2144I: Update server configuration file bootstrap.properties from inlined configuration.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  5.665 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2021-06-10T18:05:42-04:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal io.openliberty.tools:liberty-maven-plugin:3.3.4:devc (default-cli) on project javaee-cafe-jcache: No Dockerfile was found at /home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/Dockerfile. Create a Dockerfile at the specified location to use dev mode with container support. For an example of how to configure a Dockerfile, see https://github.com/OpenLiberty/ci.docker -> [Help 1]
<!-- elided -->
Compilation exited abnormally with code 1 at Thu Jun 10 18:05:42

It looks like the <dockerfile>, though it exists, is not being honored.

<dockerfile>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/Dockerfile</dockerfile>

Is this a bug?

Thanks,

Solution

SOLUTION: Use plugin-level configuration (not execution-level)

You need to add your configuration at the plugin level rather than the execution level.

So it should look more like:

      <plugin>
        <groupId>io.openliberty.tools</groupId>
        <artifactId>liberty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.3.4</version>
        <configuration>
          <dockerfile>/home/edburns/workareas/open-liberty-on-aks/javaee-app-redisson/target/Dockerfile</dockerfile>
          <!-- ... rest of config ... -->
        </configuration>
      </plugin>

The liberty:dev and liberty:devc goals kind of encapsulate a lifecycle inside a single goal, executed iteratively in a loop, but there isn't as much use for execution-level config. (Not sure this is really documented that well.)

OTHER THOUGHTS

If you look at the pom.xml in our sample guides like this one you'll see we don't even bother configuring other Liberty goals like create, deploy, etc. bound to phases like package.

We just use liberty:dev and liberty:devc to do iterative development, then when it's time to build the image, we do mvn package to let the maven-war-plugin build the war, then do the Docker build to build the WAR into the app image.

Of course you may have a reason to include this, and I'm getting off topic, but just adding some more context here.