Develop Reference

Java - how to call Java main() from a new process thread

I am trying to build out Integration Tests (IT) for an application. The application has at its centre a Server, written in Java, that set-ups a message queue from which it polls for messages sent to it on a particular port-number. I would like to write an Integration Test which fires some messages at this server/port-number and tests the response.
Below is the full list of VM arguments that I run when I start the server from within Intellij manually. I can start the server this way and then fire my test messages at it but I would like to convert this into IT tests so that I can start/stop the server programmatically at the start and end of my tests.
The problem I am having is that I dont know how to start the server application from within my test class. So to ask it more plainly, how to start the Java main() of a class in its own process thread. I am working within Intellij (2019.1) and Java 8. Should I be using the ProcessBuilder or ExecutorService maybe ?
I think I can use System.setProperty for some of the VM arguments but not sure how to specify the -XX ones...so that would be a second part to this question.
-Djava.endorsed.dirs=/Users/xxx/dev/src/repo/xxx/myapp/target/classes/lib/endorsed
-Dmyapp.home=/private/var/tmp/myapp
-Dmyapp.log.dir=/private/var/tmp
-Dmyapp.env=/Users/xxx/dev/src/repo/xxx/myapp/target/classes/etc/examples/environment-apa.sh
-Dsimplelogger.properties=/private/var/tmp/myapp/etc/simplelogger.properties
-server
-XX:CompileThreshold=2500
-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods
-Xss256k
-Xmx1g
-Xms512m
I've tried implementing this using the ExecutorService
public class ServerTest {
#Test
public void shouldStartServerOk() {
try{
startServer();
}catch(Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
fail();
}
}
private void startServer(){
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
Runnable runnableTask = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
String [] args = new String[0];
try {
System.setProperty("java.endorsed.dirs", "/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/lib/endorsed");
System.setProperty("myapp.home", "/private/var/tmp/myapp");
System.setProperty("myapp.log.dir", "/private/var/tmp");
System.setProperty("myapp.env", "/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/etc/examples/environment-apa.sh");
System.setProperty("simplelogger.properties", "/private/var/tmp/myapp/etc/simplelogger.properties");
System.setProperty("-server", "TRUE");
MyApp.main(args);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
};
executor.execute(runnableTask);
// shut down the executor manually
//executor.shutdown();
}
But this doesn't seem to work although the test does complete green. When I debug the process, the flow doesn't Step-Into MyApp.main(args). Strangely when I just try running MyApp.main(args) on its own outside of the ExecutorService then it starts and runs fine until I hit Stop in my IDE. This is behaviour I would like just the additional ability to Start/Stop the process.
UPDATE-1:
following the comments from #dmitrievanthony and #RealSkeptic I have tried to implement something along those lines based on SO question, Executing a Java application in a separate process/636367,
public final class JavaProcess {
private JavaProcess() {}
public static int exec(Class klass) throws IOException,
InterruptedException {
String javaHome = System.getProperty("java.home");
String javaBin = javaHome +
File.separator + "bin" +
File.separator + "java";
String classpath = System.getProperty("java.class.path");
String className = klass.getName();
ProcessBuilder processBuilder = new ProcessBuilder(
javaBin,
"-cp",
classpath,
className
);
Map<String, String> env = processBuilder.environment();
env.put("java.endorsed.dirs", "/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/lib/endorsed");
env.put("myapp.home", "/private/var/tmp/myapp");
env.put("myapp.log.dir", "/private/var/tmp");
env.put("myapp.env", "/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/etc/examples/environment-apa.sh");
env.put("simplelogger.properties", "/private/var/tmp/myapp/etc/simplelogger.properties");
env.put("-XX:CompileThreshold", "2500");
env.put("-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods", "");
env.put("-Xss256k", "");
env.put("-Xmx1g", "");
env.put("-Xms512m", "");
Process process = processBuilder.inheritIO().start();
process.waitFor();
return process.exitValue();
}
and calling it in my myAppIT test class as int status = JavaProcess.exec(MyAapp.class);
I can now see my class "MyApp" starting - and can confirm that the process flow is running into my MyApp.main() class. The problem now is that the System.env variables that I am setting in my ProcessBuilder do not appear to be available in the called programme ie. when I print to log System.getProperty("myapp.home") its returning null even though I can confirm that it is being set as shown in the code - does anyone have any ideas on this one please ?
UPDATE-2: I am trying to implement suggestion by #RealSkeptic and passing in the arguments in a similar way as passing commandline arguments as shown in the code snippet below. Now I am getting an exception
Error: Could not find or load main class xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.MyApp -Djava.endorsed.dirs=.Users.xxx.dev.src.gitlab.myapp.myapp.target.classes.lib.endorsed
one problem I see is that the forward slashes of the path have been translated to ".". The path should read, Djava.endorsed.dirs=/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/myapp/myapp/target/classes/lib/endorsed
ProcessBuilder processBuilder = new ProcessBuilder(
javaBin,
"-cp",
classpath,
className + " " +
"-Djava.endorsed.dirs=" + "/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/lib/endorsed " +
"-Dmyapp.home=/private/var/tmp/myapp " +
"-Dmyapp.log.dir=/private/var/tmp" +
"-Dmyapp.env=/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/etc/examples/environment-apa.sh " +
"-Dsimplelogger.properties=/private/var/tmp/myapp/etc/simplelogger.properties " +
"-server " +
"-XX:CompileThreshold=2500 " +
"-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods " +
"-Xss256k " +
"-Xmx1g " +
"-Xms512m"
);
Update-3 following the last comment from #RealSkeptic I've modified my code (see below) and this now works.
ProcessBuilder processBuilder = new ProcessBuilder(
javaBin,
"-cp",
classpath,
"-Djava.endorsed.dirs=" + "/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/lib/endorsed",
"-Dmyapp.home=/private/var/tmp/myapp",
"-Dmyapp.log.dir=/private/var/tmp",
"-Dmyapp.env=/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/etc/examples/environment-apa.sh",
"-Dsimplelogger.properties=/private/var/tmp/myapp/etc/simplelogger.properties ",
"-server",
"-XX:CompileThreshold=2500",
"-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods",
"-Xss256k",
"-Xmx1g",
"-Xms512m",
className
);

The below is copied from UPDATE-3 which I am posting as the answer. Thank you to those who responded and especially #RealSkeptic.
ProcessBuilder processBuilder = new ProcessBuilder(
javaBin,
"-cp",
classpath,
"-Djava.endorsed.dirs=" + "/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/lib/endorsed",
"-Drrc.home=/private/var/tmp/myapp",
"-Drrc.log.dir=/private/var/tmp",
"-Drrc.env=/Users/xxx/dev/src/gitlab/xxx/myapp/target/classes/etc/examples/environment-apa.sh",
"-Dsimplelogger.properties=/private/var/tmp/myapp/etc/simplelogger.properties ",
"-server",
"-XX:CompileThreshold=2500",
"-XX:+UseFastAccessorMethods",
"-Xss256k",
"-Xmx1g",
"-Xms512m",
className
);
I have refactored the above to put each of the arguments into a List so the call to ProcessBuilder reduces to,
ProcessBuilder processBuilder = new ProcessBuilder(arguments);
Process process = processBuilder.inheritIO().start();
To Stop the process you just need to call
process.destroy();

Can't open or execute command in cmd using java servlet

Want to execute echot.BAT file using java servlet. i have used following code.
Process croppingProcess = Runtime.getRuntime()
.exec("C:Windows/system32/cmd /c echot.BAT", null, new File("C:restapi_bat/echot"));
int processOutput = croppingProcess.waitFor();
if(processOutput == 0){
success = true;
//do your work here
}
but getting the error
"C:Windows/system32/cmd" (in directory "C:restapi_bat\echot"):
CreateProcess error=267, The directory name is invalid
file echot.BAT in C:\restapi_bat
Note: using tomcat 7

Instead of using C:Windows/system32/cmd you should use C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd, because Windows separates with \. The / Separator is in Linux. And you have to Escape the \, so use \\.

Using escape and Start, bat executed the solution as follow
Process croppingProcess = Runtime.getRuntime()
.exec("C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe /C Start C:\\restapi_bat\\echot ");
int processOutput = croppingProcess.waitFor();
if(processOutput == 0){
success = true;
//do your work here
}

How to set charset of Runtime.getRuntime().exec?

Here is my code:
Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"bash","-c",new String(command.getBytes(),"utf-8")});
I found out that there is no use of new String(command.getBytes(),"utf-8").
How can I to set charset?
My app is a spring boot application.
The detail command is
./xxx.jar --execute "select * from xxx where a = `我`"
When I execute the command directly in the shell, it runs well, but the java code gets garbled.
I set -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8,but it is no use for me. Why?

I found out that there is no use of new String(command.getBytes(),"utf-8").
This isn't accurate. Below is an example showing different character sets (ASCII and UTF-8) to run the same command using exec(), and the output is pretty clearly affected by the character set.
This program:
takes a single input parameter,
runs touch to create two files at /tmp/charset-test/ using that input value in the filename
further, if the input is a UTF-8 value, it should create a file with the UTF-8 value in the filename
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
public class CharsetTest {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
String input = args[0];
System.out.println("input: " + input);
Charset[] charsets = {StandardCharsets.US_ASCII, StandardCharsets.UTF_8};
for (Charset charset : charsets) {
String command = "touch /tmp/charset-test/" + input + "-" + charset.toString() + ".txt";
System.out.println("command: " + command);
// this is identical to your code, but:
// - use Charsets instead of "utf-8" so I can interate; "utf-8" also works
// - skip assigning to "Process p"
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{
"bash", "-c", new String(command.getBytes(), charset)
});
}
}
}
If I run with ASCII input "simple", it creates two files, one for each charset: "simple-US-ASCII.txt" and "simple-UTF-8.txt". This isn't all that interesting, but shows both charsets work normally with basic (ASCII) input.
% rm /tmp/charset-test/*.txt && java CharsetTest.java simple
input: simple
command: touch /tmp/charset-test/simple-US-ASCII.txt
command: touch /tmp/charset-test/simple-UTF-8.txt
% ls /tmp/charset-test
simple-US-ASCII.txt simple-UTF-8.txt
If input changes to "我", then the ASCII charset handling results in the same "garbled" output you describe ("���-US-ASCII.txt"), whereas the UTF-8 version looks good ("我-UTF-8.txt"):
% rm /tmp/charset-test/*.txt && java CharsetTest.java 我
input: 我
command: touch /tmp/charset-test/我-US-ASCII.txt
command: touch /tmp/charset-test/我-UTF-8.txt
% ls /tmp/charset-test
我-UTF-8.txt ���-US-ASCII.txt
All of this to say: your code looks fine, it's doing the right thing to pass the charset to the Runtime.exec() call. I can't say what the proper solution would be, but it's likely something with the environment (not your code).

Elevate Java application while running

A nasty problem popped out with my software. I am making a program that interacts with another existing software (a game). User has reported that he runs the game with administrator privileges and under that circumstances, my program stops working for him.
Short investigation revealed that some people really need to run the game under administrator account and some don't. It would be great if my program would be able to detect this and warn user if the game is running under administrator account:
If the user clicks "Elevate", I'd like to ask windows to elevate the java.exe running my jar file and invoke the typical UAC dialog.
Obviously, this time the question would not be about java updater but JRE
My question is: Is this possible? Can windows elevate my java.exe instance's privilege? Does java have a way to do it? Or can I use command line command?
I want to avoid restarting the program (though it wouldn't probably be such a big deal).
Edit:
If you look in the comments, you'll see that there's no avoiding the restart of an application - process can only start elevated, not become elevated. This kinda shifts the question, unfortunately. Basically, it now sounds more like: "How to restart my application with admin rights?". Unless, of course, there's a trick like two java.exe sharing one jar...

If still of interest: In Windows 7 my JavaElevator works. It elevates a running Java process when used in the main method of the Java application. Simply add -elevate as last program parameter and use the elevator in the main method.
The elevator class:
package test;
import com.sun.jna.Native;
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Kernel32;
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Kernel32Util;
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.ShellAPI;
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.WinDef;
/**
* Elevates a Java process to administrator rights if requested.
*/
public class JavaElevator {
/** The program argument indicating the need of being elevated */
private static final String ELEVATE_ARG = "-elevate";
/**
* If requested, elevates the Java process started with the given arguments to administrator level.
*
* #param args The Java program arguments
* #return The cleaned program arguments
*/
public static String[] elevate(String[] args) {
String[] result = args;
// Check for elevation marker.
boolean elevate = false;
if (args.length > 0) {
elevate = args[args.length - 1].equals(ELEVATE_ARG);
}
if (elevate) {
// Get the command and remove the elevation marker.
String command = System.getProperty("sun.java.command");
command = command.replace(ELEVATE_ARG, "");
// Get class path and default java home.
String classPath = System.getProperty("java.class.path");
String javaHome = System.getProperty("java.home");
String vm = javaHome + "\\bin\\java.exe";
// Check for alternate VM for elevation. Full path to the VM may be passed with: -Delevation.vm=...
if (System.getProperties().contains("elevation.vm")) {
vm = System.getProperty("elevation.vm");
}
String parameters = "-cp " + classPath;
parameters += " " + command;
Shell32.INSTANCE.ShellExecute(null, "runas", vm, parameters, null, 0);
int lastError = Kernel32.INSTANCE.GetLastError();
if (lastError != 0) {
String errorMessage = Kernel32Util.formatMessageFromLastErrorCode(lastError);
errorMessage += "\n vm: " + vm;
errorMessage += "\n parameters: " + parameters;
throw new IllegalStateException("Error performing elevation: " + lastError + ": " + errorMessage);
}
System.exit(0);
}
return result;
}
}
Usage in the main method of the Java application:
public static void main(String[] args) {
String[] args1 = JavaElevator.elevate(args);
if (args1.length > 0) {
// Continue as intended.
...
I know, this is a very basic implementation - sufficient for one of my daily hiccups: Starting an elevated process from Eclipse. But maybe it points someone in some dicrection...

As has been pointed in comments, sadly the Java (or any other process) cannot be elevated while running. While in the case of JWM, it could be theoretically possible to move whole program context from normal user java.exe to elevated one, I don't think it's possible. I hope some day someone will come and tell me I'm wrong.
Surprisingly, even with restart in place, this was a tricky task that took me a while to figure out.
The non java part
First, how do we exactly run a program elevated from command line? There's an answer and you can see it's not simple. But we can break it to this VBS script:
Set UAC = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
UAC.ShellExecute "program name", "command line parameters", "working directory", "runas", 1
Soon, it also turns out that we won't have any success running java.exe from VBS script. In the end, I decided to run a helper batch file. Finally, here (answer to question in the last link) we have a complete set of two scripts which really run the given .jar file elevated. Here's improved version that allows quick testing by drag'n'dropping the Jar file on it:
' Require first command line parameter
if WScript.Arguments.Count = 0 then
MsgBox("Jar file name required.")
WScript.Quit 1
end if
' Get the script location, the directorry where it's running
Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
strPath = Wscript.ScriptFullName
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.GetFile(strPath)
strFolder = objFSO.GetParentFolderName(objFile)
'MsgBox(strFolder)
' Create the object that serves as runnable something
Set UAC = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
' Args:
' path to executable to run
' command line parameters - first parameter of this file, which is the jar file name
' working directory (this doesn't work but I use it nevertheless)
' runas command which invokes elevation
' 0 means do not show the window. Normally, you show the window, but not this console window
' which just blinks and disappears anyway
UAC.ShellExecute "run-normally.bat", WScript.Arguments(0), strFolder, "runas", 0
WScript.Quit 0
The Java part
Java part is more straightforward. What we need to do is to open new process and execute the prepared scripts in it.
/**
* Start this very jar file elevated on Windows. It is strongly recommended to close any existing IO
* before calling this method and avoid writing anything more to files. The new instance of this same
* program will be started and simultaneous write/write or read/write would cause errors.
* #throws FileNotFoundException if the helper vbs script was not found
* #throws IOException if there was another failure inboking VBS script
*/
public void StartWithAdminRights() throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
//The path to the helper script. This scripts takes 1 argument which is a Jar file full path
File runAsAdmin = new File("run-as-admin.vbs");;
//Our
String jarPath;
//System.out.println("Current relative path is: " + s);
try {
jarPath = "\""+new File(Main.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath()).getAbsolutePath()+"\"";
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
throw new FileNotFoundException("Could not fetch the path to the current jar file. Got this URISyntax exception:"+ex);
}
//If the jar path was created but doesn't contain .jar, we're (most likely) not running from jar
//typically this happens when running the program from IDE
//These 4 lines just serve as a fallback in testing, should be deleted in production
//code and replaced with another FileNotFoundException
if(!jarPath.contains(".jar")) {
Path currentRelativePath = Paths.get("");
jarPath = "\""+currentRelativePath.toAbsolutePath().toString()+"\\AutoClient.jar\"";
}
//Now we check if the path to vbs script exists, if it does we execute it
if(runAsAdmin.exists()) {
String command = "cscript \""+runAsAdmin.getAbsolutePath()+"\" "+jarPath;
System.out.println("Executing '"+command+"'");
//Note that .exec is asynchronous
//After it starts, you must terminate your program ASAP, or you'll have 2 instances running
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command);
}
else
throw new FileNotFoundException("The VBSScript used for elevation not found at "+runAsAdmin.getAbsolutePath());
}

This is my version. It creates a VBScript script, then executes it. This only works if the program that is being run is in a jar file, so you will have to run your IDE as administrator to actually test your program.
public static void relaunchAsAdmin() throws IOException {
relaunchAsAdmin(ThisClass.class); //Change ThisClass to the class that this method is in
}
public static void relaunchAsAdmin(Class<?> clazz) throws IOException {
if(isCurrentProcessElevated()) {
return;
}
final String dir = System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir");
final File script = new File(dir, "relaunchAsAdmin" + System.nanoTime() +
".vbs");
try {
script.createNewFile();
OutputStreamWriter osw = new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(script));
osw.append("Set s=CreateObject(\"Shell.Application\")" + ln + "s.ShellExecute \"" +
System.getProperty("java.home") + "\\bin\\java.exe" + "\",\"-jar \"\"" +
new File(clazz.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource(
).getLocation().toURI()).getAbsolutePath() + "\"\"\",,\"runas\",0" +
ln + "x=createObject(\"scripting.fileSystemObject\").deleteFile(" +
"WScript.scriptfullname)");
osw.close();
if(System.getenv("processor_architecture").equals("x86")) {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:\\Windows\\System32\\wscript.exe \"" +
script.getAbsolutePath() + "\"");
} else {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("C:\\Windows\\SysWoW64\\wscript.exe \"" +
script.getAbsolutePath() + "\"");
}
} catch(URISyntaxException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Runtime.getRuntime().exit(0);
}
Note that it is a bit messy. I have been using this method before, so it has been line wrapped to 100 characters (except the comment I wrote for this answer). The
isCurrentProcessElevated()
method will have to be implemented in one way or another. You could try using JNI, or you could use a pure Java method, such as writing in the Program Files or System32 directory and seeing if it failed.
Obviously, this solution will only work on Windows. I never needed to elevate on Linux or Mac systems (mainly because I don't have any Mac systems, and I don't use Linux - I just play with it).

command fails from exec() but works on terminal

I'm trying to convert pdf to txt by using Java. I've tried Apache PDFBox but, for some weird reason, it doesn't convert the whole document. For this reason I decided to use pdftotext by executing a Runtime.getRuntime().exec() call. The problem is that, while on my terminal pdftotext works flawlessly, the exec() call gives me error code 1 (sometimes even 99).
Here's the call:
pdftotext "/home/www-data/CANEFS_TEST/Hello/ciao.pdf" "/tmp/ciao.pdf.txt"
Here's the code
private static File callPDF2Text(File input,File output){
assert input.exists();
assert Utils.getExtension(input).equalsIgnoreCase("pdf");
assert Utils.getExtension(output).equalsIgnoreCase("txt") : output.getAbsoluteFile().toString();
Process p=null;
try {
System.out.println(String.format(
PDF2TXT_COMMAND,
input.getAbsolutePath(),
output.getAbsolutePath()));
p=Runtime.getRuntime().exec(String.format(
PDF2TXT_COMMAND,
input.getAbsolutePath(),
output.getAbsolutePath()));
p.waitFor();
if (p.exitValue()!=0){
throw new RuntimeException("exit value for pdftotext is "+p.exitValue());
}
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
return output;
}
Here's PDF2TXT_COMMAND string definition:
public static final String PDFTXT_COMMAND="pdftotext \"%s\" \"%s\"";
I know that usually these kinds of errors are caused by the permission setup. So, here 's the output of ls -l command on the Hello folder:
ls -l /home/www-data/CANEFS_TEST/Hello/
total 136
-rwxrwxr-- 1 www-data www-data 136041 mar 27 16:31 ciao.pdf
Also, note that the user creating the process is koldar, which is in the group www-data itself.
Thank you for your time and patience!

Don't use " in your format string... These chars are specially parsed by the shell and you don't use a shell to launch the command...
I can suggest you to use exec(String []) not exec(String) so that you will be able to separate each arg of your command:
String []command = new String[3];
command[0] = "pdftotext";
command[1] = input.getAbsolutePath();
command[2] = output.getAbsolutePath();
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command);
That should work. If it doesn't, that may be a question of access rights on dir.