Announcing Thorntail 2.4.0.Final

Thorntail 2.4.0.Final

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day festivities, we bring you a new Thorntail release!

What’s New?

  • Java 11 support

  • MicroProfile 2.2 support

  • MicroProfile JWT improvements

  • Gradle improvements

  • Thorntail Runner improvements

Java 11 support

Thorntail now works with Java 11, both for building an uberjar and running it. Please note that modulepath is not supported; Thorntail only runs on classpath.

Known issues

Migrating from Java 8 to 11 can be somewhat difficult, but fortunately, there’s many online resources to help you. As one example, we can recommend All You Need To Know For Migrating To Java 11.

You might specifically notice that some components that are brought in as transitive dependencies are still not fully ready for Java 11. Often, there’s a newer version that works much better. Here’s a few examples that you might notice:

  • ISPN-9720: illegal reflective access operation in Infinispan

  • JBMAR-216: wrong reflection usage in JBoss Marshalling

These new versions will percolate to Thorntail over time, as we update to new WildFly releases.

Using new Java modules

By now, you probably already know that Thorntail, being built on top of WildFly, has its own module system: JBoss Modules. On Java 8, JBoss Modules imitate the Java module system, and on Java 9+, the two module systems are integrated. In particular, this means that if you want to use some new feature from Java 11 that’s only available in an extra module, you also need to declare a module dependency.

A prime example is the new Java HTTP Client, which exists in the java.net.http module. To be able to use it in a Thorntail application, it needs to express a dependency on this module. However, Thorntail doesn’t support running on modulepath, so expressing a dependency does not mean adding module-info.java. Instead, you use the same mechanism you’ve been using in WildFly and Thorntail all the time: jboss-deployment-structure.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<jboss-deployment-structure>
    <deployment>
        <dependencies>
            <module name="java.net.http"/>
        </dependencies>
    </deployment>
</jboss-deployment-structure>

This file must be placed in the WEB-INF directory in your WAR (or META-INF in case your application is a JAR).

To learn more about jboss-deployment-structure.xml, refer to the Class Loading chapter in WildFly documentation.

MicroProfile 2.2 support

Thorntail now implements MicroProfile 2.2 by including the latest SmallRye artifacts. These specifications have been updated to a new version:

  • Fault Tolerance 2.0

  • OpenAPI 1.1

  • OpenTracing 1.3

  • Rest Client 1.2

MicroProfile JWT improvements

One new fraction was added that improves Keycloak integration with MicroProfile JWT: keycloak-microprofile-jwt.

Also it is now much easier to configure MicroProfile JWT itself. Previously, you had to use a giant chunk of YAML like this:

thorntail:
  security:
    security-domains:
      test-realm:
        jaspi-authentication:
          login-module-stacks:
            test-login-module-stack:
              login-modules:
              - login-module: jwt-login-module
                code: org.wildfly.swarm.microprofile.jwtauth.deployment.auth.jaas.JWTLoginModule
                flag: required
                module-options:
                  rolesProperties: role-mapping.properties
          auth-modules:
            http:
              code: org.wildfly.extension.undertow.security.jaspi.modules.HTTPSchemeServerAuthModule
              module: org.wildfly.extension.undertow
              flag: required
              login-module-stack-ref: test-login-module-stack

It is now enough to write this:

thorntail:
  microprofile:
    jwtauth:
      realm: test-realm
      roles:
        file: role-mapping.properties

Internally, the second configuration is transformed to the first one, so the behavior is identical.

Gradle improvements

Thorntail Gradle plugin has seen yet another round of improvements in 2.4.0.Final.

Thorntail Runner improvements

Thorntail Runner has been updated to better support working with multi-module projects in the IDE.

Changelog

Release notes for 2.4.0.Final are available here.

Feature Request

  • [THORN-1594] Verify/Fix execution on JDK 11 (Done)

  • [THORN-2324] provide the ability to toggle filtering of WEB-INF/lib (Done)

Enhancement

  • [THORN-1852] MP JWT Fraction should integrate with the Keycloak client token introspector/verifier (Done)

  • [THORN-2313] Gradle plugin: provide tasks to run|start|stop the application (Done)

  • [THORN-2325] update default favicon with thorntail logo (Done)

Task

  • [THORN-1933] MP FT - align CircuitBreaker.failOn() functionality once the spec issue is resolved (Done)

  • [THORN-2297] upgrade Keycloak to the latest 4.8.x.Final (Done)

  • [THORN-2339] Infinispan fraction should be added to supported fractions (Done)

  • [THORN-2352] Simplify microprofile-jwt configuration of the authentication module (Done)

Epic

Component Upgrade

Bug

  • [THORN-2287] Multi-module projects with files in the same directories, e.g. META-INF/beans.xml (Done)

  • [THORN-2307] build fails on JDK 11 (Done)

  • [THORN-2311] conflicting definitions of the org.eclipse.microprofile.restclient module (Done)

  • [THORN-2312] Runner fails with ZipException: duplicate entry: /WEB-INF/classes/META-INF/jandex.idx (Duplicate Issue)

  • [THORN-2315] thorntail-maven-plugin chokes on scanning Java 11 classes (Done)

  • [THORN-2319] Fraction 'full' does not contain JSON-B and EE Security fractions (Done)

  • [THORN-2322] Thorntail Maven Plugin Strips Required Dependencies from WEB-INF/lib (Done)

  • [THORN-2327] JSF fraction doesn’t transitively bring in the JSF API (Done)

  • [THORN-2332] Messaging-Cluster example does not work (Done)

  • [THORN-2333] io.thorntail:microprofile-restclient (Done)

  • [THORN-2335] Invalid META-INF/services record in microprofile-restclient fraction (Done)

  • [THORN-2338] javaee-api:7.0 transitive dependency in 2.3.0.Final (Done)

  • [THORN-2349] fraction plugin passes old system properties (swarm.*) when building offline Maven repository (Done)

  • [THORN-2350] upgrade to fraction plugin 94 (Done)

Resources

Per usual, we tend to hang out on irc.freenode.net in #thorntail.

All bug and feature-tracking is kept in JIRA.

Documentation for this release is available:

Thank you, Contributors!

We appreciate all of our contributors since the last release:

Core

  • Sergey Beryozkin

  • Ken Finnigan

  • Tomas Hofman

  • Erik Mattheis

  • Harsha Ramesh

  • Antoine Sabot-Durand

  • Michal Szynkiewicz

  • Ladislav Thon

  • Harald Wellmann

  • Eric Wittmann

Examples

  • icer33

  • Sergey Beryozkin

  • Ken Finnigan

  • Tomas Hofman

  • Scott M Stark

  • Gunnar Morling

  • Sven Ruppert

  • Ladislav Thon

  • Axel Wathne