This post covers a new tool, jpackage introduced in Java 14.

What is the Jpackage tool?

JPackage is a Java package tool to create installable packages for different environments.

It is an incubator feature, not stable with the java14 version in jdk.incubator.jpackage. It provides a java application as a collection of JAR files and runs on platforms. It allows users to distribute, install, and uninstall packages similar to native OS apps.

Why Jpackage tool required?

java applications run on end-user platform-specific environments. It is very difficult to ship, and install applications on the user machine, As it has a lot of dependencies in installing, setting classpaths, and configurations.

To resolve it, Jpackage provides an application to ship to the end user and runs on a platform-independent machine without worrying about dependencies and configurations.

Supports for following platform-specific packages. To generate packages for platforms, requires following tools required

  • Windows: exe and msi, It requires WiX 3.0 or later
  • MacOS: pkg and dmg, XCode command line tools
  • Linux and Unix:
    • deb and rpm.
    • rpm-build is required for Red Hat Linux, fakeroot package is required for Ubuntu Linux

Jpackage Command line

Jpackage takes the java application, runtime image and output java application image with all dependencies.

syntax

jpackage options

--type or -t : package type, values are app-image,exe, msi, rpm, deb, pkg, dmg. --app-version : package version

You can check more options

Here is an example

jpackage --name employeeapp --input lib --main-jar employee.jar

lib folder contains all lib dependencies

--main-jar contains main-class located in employee.jar. if main-class not found, input main-class option

jpackage --name employeeapp --input lib --main-jar employee.jar --main-class com.organization.Main

It generates an application package in local native default format.

Reference