Ubuntu + IntelliJ + Maven + Jetty + JRebel

http://flurdy.com/docs/intellij/

Ubuntu + IntelliJ + Maven + Jetty + JRebel

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Table of contents

1. Aim
   1. Why?
   2. Prerequisites
2. Java
   1. Install Java
   2. Configure Java
3. Maven
   1. Install Maven
   2. Configure Maven
      1. Settings.xml
   3. Download the internet
4. JRebel
   1. Jrebel license
   2. Download Jrebel
   3. Install Jrebel
   4. Configure Jrebel
5. IntelliJ IDEA
   1. Intellij license
   2. Download IntelliJ
   3. Install IntelliJ
      1. Add IntelliJ to the menu
   4. Configure IntelliJ
      1. Configure Maven in IntelliJ
      2. Install & configure
         JRebel plugin in IntelliJ
6. Your project
   1. Import project into IntelliJ
7. Jetty
   1. Run Jetty in IntelliJ
8. Extensions
   1. Compile on Save
9. References
10. Feedback

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1 Aim

• Main aim is to use IntelliJ IDEA in Ubuntu for Java based web applications.
• With Maven and Jetty through its plugin as the server
• And speeding up development with JRebel

1.a Why?

The combination of Ubuntu, IntelliJ, Maven, Jetty and JRebel enables really quick web app development in Java.

• Ubuntu. Feel handicapped when forced to use dumbdowned Windows at work.

• Maven. A build system with flaws but still better than most, and especially important as it is used by most projects.

• IntelliJ IDEA. An IDE with many ingenious little tricks to make development speedier and feels very comfortable to use. At work my IDE is often either Eclipse on some projects as it often is the company standard, or NetBeans when work refuse to buy IntelliJ licenses. But with some clients and at home with my FOSS license I am much more productive with IntelliJ.

• Jetty. A standalone java web application server. It is quick and very light. The Maven plugin for it makes it easy to bundle and launch locally. It also then allows for very swift development cycles.

• JRebel. JRebel (Née JavaRebel) reloads java classes dynamically and allows even swifter development cycles, by negating the need to ever redeploy. This saves a lot of time, thus money, and improves quality with quicker feedback loops.

And I need these tools to work together seamlessly.

1.b Prerequisites

• Ubuntu

  I will assume you have a normal version of Ubuntu Desktop installed. This guide was based upon Ubuntu 10.04 lucid lynx.

• Project

  A normal java based webapp project buildt with maven that are using the jetty plugin is assumed to be checked out on your machine. If you do not have one set up, you can read up on java, maven & jetty and clone an example app of mine.

2 Java

2.a Install Java

sudo aptitude install sun-java6-jdk

2.b Configure Java

In case of other Java JDK are installed, choose Sun's flavour

sudo update-alternatives --config java sudo update-alternatives --config javac

Environment variables

sudo vi /etc/profile.d/java.sh export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
export JDK_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/java.sh

3 Maven

3.a Install Maven

Your choice: either install via Ubuntu package repository or download the full Maven directly. The repository version depends on a load of unneccesary packages such as gjc, Ant etc. So most people recommend using the apache.org dowload instead.

For this howto I will utilise the repository version, but the only difference afterwards is the path. (You may try and restrict the installation of optional packages...)

sudo aptitude install maven2

If you prefer the downloaded archive then do this instead:

tar xzf apache-maven-2.2.1.tar.gz;
sudo mkdir /opt/apache;
sudo mv apache-maven-2.2.1 /opt/apache/maven-2.2.1;
cd /opt/apache;
sudo ln -s maven-2.2.1 maven;

And refer to /opt/apache/maven instead of /usr/share/maven2 in the paths below.

3.b Configure Maven

Some programs depend on different environment variables for Maven.
Also the default memory assignment is very low so you may optionally add it.

sudo vi /etc/profile.d/maven.sh export MAVEN_HOME=/usr/share/maven2
export M2_HOME=/usr/share/maven2
#export MAVEN_OPTS=-Xms128M -Xmx512M -XX:MaxPermSize=256m
#export MAVEN_OPTS=-noverify -javaagent:$JREBEL_HOME/jrebel.jar
sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/maven.sh

3.b.i Settings.xml

Depending on your project you may need to configure the default maven settings, such as any mirrors you use, passwords, other repositories, profiles etc.
But that is out of scope of this document.

mkdir ~/.m2;
vi ~/.m2/settings.xml

3.c Download the internet

Because of maven dependency characteristics it is wise to do an initial a simple clean & build of your application do download all the dependencies, and the special go-offline goal. Remember to include any potential profiles if they have dependencies. ( -P profile1,profile2....)

This may take a while.... But you only have to do it once (ish..)

cd /path/to/your/project,
mvn clean;
# Wait a little while....
mvn dependency:go-offline;
# Wait a long while....
mvn install;
# Wait a longer while....
mvn jetty:run;
# Wait a longish while....

When ready kill Jetty with ^C (As in ctrl+c)

Remember from now on you should mostly do append -o parameter (offline) to speed up builds.

4 JRebel

4.a JRebel license

You need to obtain a license to run JRebel.
You can use the trial version for 30 days. (Its worth it)

Note: ZeroTurnaround do offer free licenses for open source developers.

4.b Download JRebel

Download the generic JAR installer

4.c Install JRebel

cd /tmp;
unzip ~/Downloads/jrebel-*-setup.zip;
sudo -jar jrebel/jrebel-setup.zip

I tend to choose /opt/ZeroTurnaround/JRebel as my install path, but the default it /usr/local/ZeroTurnaround/Jrebel.

4.d Configure JRebel

If the installer doesn't trigger the configuration, or you want to reconfigure:

sudo /opt/ZeroTurnaround/JRebel/bin/jrebel-config.sh

1. Choose "IntelliJ 8.x or later" as IDE
2. Tick "I use maven to build my application"
3. Tick "I run the server from my IDE"
4. Click Next and read how JRebel integrates with IntelliJ.
5. Click Next and read how JRebel integrates with Maven, you may want to update your projects Pom file.
6. Click Next and read how the servers inside IDEs are affected.
7. A usefull tip is the ctrl+s remaped keyboard shortcut
8. In the top right click on "Configure manually"
9. In "Java version" choose "Java 5 or later"
10. In "Operating System" choose "Unix-like (Linux, Mac OS C, etc)"
11. In "Server" choose "Maven Jetty Plugin"
12. Read how you should update your projects pom.xml by setting the scanIntervalseconds to 0
13. Add the jrebel line to maven opts sudo vi /etc/profile.d/maven.sh And then uncomment or add the MAVEN_OPTS line: export MAVEN_OPTS="-noverify -javaagent:/opt/ZeroTurnaround/JRebel/jrebel.jar $MAVEN_OPTS"
14. Click Next
15. Tick "Log to file"
16. Set "Custom log file location" to "/var/log/jrebel/jrebel.log". Create the jrebel log folder: sudo mkdir /var/log/jrebel;
sudo chown jrebel:jrebel /var/log/jrebel
17. Pick your plugins..
18. Click Next and Finish

sudo vi /etc/profile.d/jrebel.sh export JREBEL_HOME=/opt/ZeroTurnaround/JRebel sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/jrebel.sh

5 IntelliJ IDEA

5.a IntelliJ license

Decide which version you want. I will assume a trial of the ultimate edition.

Note: JetBrains do offer free licenses for IntelliJ Ultimate for open source developers.

5.b Download IntelliJ

Go to JetBrains IntelliJ download page, and download the most recent version.

5.c Install IntelliJ

Like JRebel I prefer /opt/jetbrains as my install location. You may prefer directly in /opt or in /usr/local, etc.

cd /tmp;
tar xzf ~/Downloads/ideaIU-10.0.1.tar.gz;
sudo chown -R root:root idea-IU-99.32;
sudo mkdir /opt/jetbrains;
sudo mv idea-IU-99.32 /opt/jetbrains/;
sudo cd /opt/jetbrains;
sudo ln -s idea--IU-99.32 idea;

5.c.i Add IntelliJ to the menu

1. Select System/Preferences/Main Menu
2. In the left column, select Programming
3. Click New item
4. Enter "IntelliJ IDEA" as the Name
5. Enter /opt/jetbrains/idea/bin/idea.sh as the Command
6. Click on the icon on the left to choose icon.
7. Enter /opt/jetbrains/idea/bin/ in the Location field
8. Choose idea128.png as the icon and click on Open
9. Then OK, then Close

5.d Configure IntelliJ

On first launch IntelliJ will ask you a series of questions regarding plugins etc.

Choose maven plugin amongst others.

5.d.i Configure Maven in IntelliJ

Open settings via File/Settings/maven and enter Maven home directory as /usr/share/maven2

5.d.ii Install & configure JRebel plugin in IntelliJ

1. Open the plugins section via File/Settings/Plugins
2. Choose the Available tab
3. Search for JRebel
4. Right click on JRebel Plugin and choose Download and install
5. Once installed go to File/Settings/JRebel
6. Enter /opt/ZeroTurnaround/JRebel/jrebel.jar in JRebel location

6 Your project

6.a Import project into IntelliJ

1. Find your project via File/New project
2. Choose Import project from External model
3. Select Maven
4. Find your project root
5. Check Environment settings still refer to /usr/share/maven2 as Maven location
6. Wait awhile for IntelliJ to load the new project information

7 Jetty

7.a Run Jetty in IntelliJ

1. In IntelliJ, click to open Maven Projects on the right hand side
2. Expand
   1. your project
   2. Plugins
   3. Jetty
3. Right clik on jetty:run
4. I choose the top option Run Maven build, which is the same as if I double clicked on jetty:run.
   ( Others say you should choose Run with JRebel, but the top option works for me, and the JRebel action actually gives me an error that maven is not configured...)

8 Extension

8.a Compile on save

IntelliJ does not support Compile-on-save / Auto-build.
This feature is essential to get the best time saving from using JRebel.

So you will have to manually enter ctrl++shift+F9 to compile your file, or just ctrl+F9 to build your whole project.

A decent work around is to map ctrl+s as the build command.

Another is to install a plugin called Eclipse Mode, which auto build like eclipse.
(I have not been able to get this to work as expected)

9 References

• Matt Raible's tips on IntelliJ on Mac OS X

10 Feedback

• If you find any elements are missing, please let me know.
• If you spot any errors, please let me know.
• If there are elements you want to discuss, the Ubuntu forums are very busy and usefull.
• If you found this helpfull, why not buy a t-shirt from my shop?
• If you would like committed help from me, consider hiring me?
• If you write/find similar howto, or even one based on these, please let me know so I can link to it!

• flurdy |
• @flurdy |
• feedback |
• hire me |
• donate/shirts |
• more docs

• (
• started May 2010 |
• last updated January 2011
• )