Building Native Binary

Problem Definition

Build actor-IaC as a native binary. This enables execution in environments where JDK is not installed.

How to do it

Prerequisites

GraalVM version 21 or higher must be installed.

sdk install java 21.0.2-graalce

Verify that the native-image command is available.

native-image --version

native-image 21.0.2 2024-01-16
GraalVM Runtime Environment GraalVM CE 21.0.2+13.1 (build 21.0.2+13-jvmci-23.1-b30)

Build

Build the uber JAR in the actor-IaC directory.

cd ~/actor-IaC
mvn clean package

Build the native binary with native-image.

native-image \
  -jar target/actor-IaC-2.14.0.jar \
  -o actor-iac \
  --no-fallback \
  -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces \
  --initialize-at-build-time=org.yaml.snakeyaml \
  --initialize-at-run-time=com.jcraft.jsch

The build takes several minutes. When complete, actor-iac is generated.

Usage

chmod +x actor-iac
./actor-iac --help

The native binary requires neither JVM nor JBang. You can copy it to any directory and use it.

Under the hood

Meaning of native-image Options

Option	Meaning
--no-fallback	Disable JVM fallback. Generate a pure native binary
-H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces	Display stack traces when exceptions occur
--initialize-at-build-time=org.yaml.snakeyaml	Initialize SnakeYAML at build time. Speeds up startup
--initialize-at-run-time=com.jcraft.jsch	Initialize JSch (SSH) at runtime. For native image compatibility

Startup Time Comparison

Method	Startup Time (approximate)
Direct JAR execution	1-2 seconds
JBang launcher	1-2 seconds (after cache)
Native binary	Less than 0.1 seconds

Native binaries have fast startup but take time to build. It is common to use direct JAR execution or JBang during development and use native binaries for production distribution.