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JPackage – Launch Java Apps without JVM

The jpackage tool of Java 14 can be used to create platform specific packages of java apps.  The app does not require a JVM to run.

Example

/opt/jdk-14/bin/jpackage --name etctoy --input target --main-jar etctoy.jar

The call is made from within a maven project. etctoy.jar is a fat-jar (size 6.6M) but the call should also work for regular jars with further dependencies in the target directory (see –input parameter).

The result is a debian package that installs the app under /opt/etctoy

sudo dpkg -i etctoy_1.0-1_amd64.deb

The installation uses 140M of disk space.

To make the tool available via command line on should link the binary into /usr/bin

sudo ln -s /opt/etctoy/bin/etctoy /usr/bin