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javamavenjar

How to bundle a JAR file with its dependencies using maven


I am developing a Java agent using ByteBuddy, and I need the ByteBuddy library .jar file to be included in the agent .jar file. So far, in order for the agent to run smoothly, I need the ByteBuddy library .jar files to be present in the classpath both at compile time and at runtime. How can I bundle a .jar file such that the agent is self-contained ?

I tried using the shade plugin (as demonstrated here) as well as a few other techniques found on the web, but none of them seem to really include the dependencies in the .jar file, only a reference.

For every technique, I looked in the resulting .jar file (weighs around 5kB every time) and only found the .class files corresponding to the classes I had written, no class files related to ByteBuddy. To be clear, the ByteBuddy library .jar file weighs about 3MB, so I expect my self-contained agent .jar file to weigh around 3MB, as my code is light.

Below is my pom.xml file :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<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>

  <groupId>com.captainhook.agent</groupId>
  <artifactId>agent</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>

  <name>agent</name>
  <!-- FIXME change it to the project's website -->
  <url>http://www.example.com</url>

  <properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    <maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
    <maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
  </properties>

  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>junit</groupId>
      <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
      <version>4.11</version>
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>net.bytebuddy</groupId>
      <artifactId>bytebuddy</artifactId>
      <version>1.12.3</version>
      <scope>system</scope>
      <systemPath>${project.basedir}/byte-buddy-1.12.3.jar</systemPath>
   </dependency>
   <dependency>
    <groupId>net.bytebuddy.agent</groupId>
    <artifactId>bytebuddy-agent</artifactId>
    <version>1.12.3</version>
    <scope>system</scope>
    <systemPath>${project.basedir}/byte-buddy-agent-1.12.3.jar</systemPath>
 </dependency>
  </dependencies>

  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <phase>package</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>single</goal>
            </goals>
          </execution>
        </executions>
        <configuration>
          <descriptorRefs>
            <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
          </descriptorRefs>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

And this is the output I get after running mvn package :

[...]
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-jar-plugin:2.4:jar (default-jar) @ agent ---
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-assembly-plugin:2.2-beta-5:single (default) @ agent ---
[INFO] Building jar: /home/bluesheet/svn/stages/captainhook/2021/ijp-frida-jdi-bytebuddy/1/dbg/shared/agent/maven-test/agent/target/agent-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  1.339 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2021-12-31T12:26:59+01:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: So, the reason why all the previous techniques were not working was because of the way I specified the dependencies. This doesn't get included :

<dependency>
    <groupId>net.bytebuddy</groupId>
    <artifactId>bytebuddy</artifactId>
    <version>1.12.3</version>
    <scope>system</scope>
    <systemPath>${project.basedir}/byte-buddy-1.12.3.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>

while this does :

<dependency>
    <groupId>net.bytebuddy</groupId>
    <artifactId>byte-buddy</artifactId>
    <version>1.12.6</version>
</dependency>

I am new to maven so I blindly copy-pasted a piece of code to include the dependencies and I did not spot the error... Thank you very much !


Solution

  • Sounds like you need to use the "maven-assembly-plugin" with the "jar-with-dependencies" descriptor.

    E.g. here is a full example pom file with a dependency on ByteBuddy:

    <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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
        <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    
        <groupId>test.example</groupId>
        <artifactId>packaging-example</artifactId>
        <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    
        <build>
            <plugins>
                <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>test.example.TestByteBuddy</mainClass>
                            </manifest>
                        </archive>
                    </configuration>
                    <executions>
                        <execution>
                            <id>make-assembly</id>
                            <phase>package</phase>
                            <goals>
                                <goal>single</goal>
                            </goals>
                        </execution>
                    </executions>
                </plugin>
    
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                    <configuration>
                        <source>1.8</source>
                        <target>1.8</target>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
    
            </plugins>
        </build>
    
        <dependencies>
    
            <dependency>
                <groupId>net.bytebuddy</groupId>
                <artifactId>byte-buddy</artifactId>
                <version>1.12.6</version>
            </dependency>
    
        </dependencies>
    
    </project>
    
    

    And for the sake of completeness - here is the main class also :

    package test.example;
    
    import net.bytebuddy.ByteBuddy;
    
    public class TestByteBuddy
    {
        public static void main(String... args) throws Exception
        {
            System.out.println("Hello Byte Buddy Class - " + ByteBuddy.class);
        }
    }
    

    Building this will produce an additional file in the target directory - packaging-example-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar

    Then you should be able to run it simply with :

    java -jar packaging-example-1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar 
    

    to give you the output:

    Hello Byte Buddy Class - class net.bytebuddy.ByteBuddy