Deploy Spring Boot Application on Oracle WebLogic Server

Objective of post
Edit code
Install Spring Boot
Deploy on WebLogic
Undeploy
Update deployment

1. Objective of post

In this post, I will show you how to deploy a Spring Boot application on a WebLogic Server. This is a Web Server provided by Oracle, free of charge for downloading, developing, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating your application. The WebLogic is released based on the OTN license.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/distribution-license-152002.html

Ensure that you have installed the WebLogic successfully. If not, you can refer to the way of installing WebLogic as in the following post:

Install Oracle WebLogic Server

In fact, Spring Boot application can be packaged into an Executable JAR file. With this file, you can run the application directly without deploying it on any Web Server. The Executable JAR file can not be compatible with all Web servers, therefore, if you want to deploy it on a Web server, you need to package the Spring Boot application into a WAR file.

2. Edit code

I has a Spring Boot project here, developed with Eclipse IDE. When creating a Spring Boot, you have 2 choices to package this project such as WAR or JAR.

When you create a Spring Boot project with "Packaging = War" option, Eclipse will create 2 classes such as "AbcApplication & ServletInitializer" for you. WAR files are suitable for being deployed on Web Servers.

While, if you create a Spring Boot with the "Packaging = Jar" choice, only one AbcApplication class will be created. When the Spring Boot application is packed into the JAR file, it can be independently executabe without being deployed on any Web Server. But the JAR file is not suitable to be deployed on Web Servers.

WAR File.

If you have an available Spring Boot, you need to correct packaging method into WAR:

On the Eclipse, open the pom.xml file, and change packaging method into war.

If your project doesn't have a ServletInitializer class, create it.

ServletInitializer.java

package org.o7planning.example;

import org.springframework.boot.builder.SpringApplicationBuilder;
import org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.SpringBootServletInitializer;

public class ServletInitializer extends SpringBootServletInitializer {

    @Override
    protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
        return application.sources(SpringBootWebLogicApplication.class);
    }

}

Add the following configuration snippet to the pom.xml:

** pom.xml **

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

If there are more than one Application class in your project, please tell the Spring Boot which class will be used for your application.

** pom.xml **

<properties>
        <start-class>org.o7planning.example.OtherSpringBootWebApplication</start-class>
</properties>

weblogic.xml & dispatcherServlet-servlet.xml

Create the 2 files such as weblogic.xml & dispatcherServlet-servlet.xml in the src/main/webapp/WEB-INF folder. It is noted that if this folder doesn't exist, please create it.

When your application is deployed on the WebLogic, there will be "context-root = /myweb", and you can change it by installing in the weblogic.xml file:

weblogic.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<wls:weblogic-web-app
        xmlns:wls="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app
        http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-web-app/1.4/weblogic-web-app.xsd">

    <wls:context-root>/myweb</wls:context-root>
    <wls:container-descriptor>
        <wls:prefer-application-packages>
            <wls:package-name>org.slf4j.*</wls:package-name>
            <wls:package-name>org.springframework.*</wls:package-name>
        </wls:prefer-application-packages>
    </wls:container-descriptor>

</wls:weblogic-web-app>

dispatcherServlet-servlet.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">
    
</beans>

3. Install Spring Boot

In the next step, you need to use Maven to create WAR file. You have to ensure that your Eclipse is using JDK instead of JRE. If not, en error will occur in this process.

Configuring Eclipse to use the JDK instead of JRE

Right click on the Project and select:

Run As/Maven Install

At this moment, you will have a WAR file in the target folder of the project, you can use this file to deploy on the Tomcat Server.

4. Deploy on WebLogic

After packaging the application into a WAR file, you can deploy this file on the WebLogic:

There are two approaches to deploy the application to the WebLogic Server.

Copy the WAR file to a folder of the server, and then deploy it to the WebLogic. If you want to re-deploy the application, you only need to copy the new WAR file overwriting the old file and notify to the WebLogic to update the application.
Use Upload function to deploy the WAR file.

OK, here, I have copied the WAR file and install it to a folder in the server.

Press "Activate Changes" to activate changes.

At this moment, your application has "Prepared" status (prepared). It isn't really activated to work.

Test

5. Undeploy

Undeploy an application on the WebLogic, you must carry out 2 steps.

Stop the application.
Delete the application out of the WebLogic.

6. Update deployment

If your application is upgraded, you repackage the application and get a new WAR file. To redeploy the application, you have 2 ways to do:

Undeploy the application and Redeploy.
Copy a new WAR file overwriting the old WAR file and notify to the WebLogic to update the application again (or restart the WebLogic). Note: This way is used only when your application is deployed directly from the WAR file put on the server.

In the previous step, I have deployed the application directly from the WAR file placed on an folder of the server. Now I will copy the new file to overwrite the old file.

And update the application: