Run Spring Boot App from a Command Line

In this short article, I show you how to run Spring boot application using the command line in windows.

Quick Steps

You can quickly refer below two ways to run spring boot application from a command line.

1. Run spring boot application with java -jar command:

$ java -jar target/myapplication-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

2. Run spring boot application with mvn spring-boot:run maven plugin:

$ mvn spring-boot:run

Run Spring Boot App from a Command Line

If you are using maven as project management and build tool then make sure that you have added spring boot maven plugin to your pom.xml file.

Note on Spring Boot Maven plugin

The Spring Boot Maven plugin provides many convenient features:

• It collects all the jars on the classpath and builds a single, runnable "über-jar", which makes it more convenient to execute and transport your service.
• It searches for the public static void main() method to flag as a runnable class.
• It provides a built-in dependency resolver that sets the version number to match Spring Boot dependencies. You can override any version you wish, but it will default to Boot’s chosen set of versions.

<build>
        <plugins>
             <plugin>
                 <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                 <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
     </build>

Run Spring Boot app with java -jar command

If you use the Spring Boot Maven or Gradle plugins to create an executable jar, you can run your application using java -jar. For example, let's build this maven project using mvn clean install and change the directory to the current project directory and run following command in cmd.

$ java -jar target/myapplication-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

It is also possible to run a packaged application with remote debugging support enabled. Doing so lets you attach a debugger to your packaged application, as shown in the following example:

$ java -Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:server=y,transport=dt_socket,address=8000,suspend=n \
       -jar target/myapplication-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

Run Spring Boot app with java -jar command

The Spring Boot Maven plugin includes a run goal that can be used to quickly compile and run your application. Applications run in an exploded form, as they do in your IDE. The following example shows a typical Maven command to run a Spring Boot application:

$ mvn spring-boot:run

We can also use the MAVEN_OPTS operating system environment variable, as shown in the following example:

$ export MAVEN_OPTS=-Xmx1024m

Five ways we can run Spring Boot Application

1. Running from an IDE
2. Running as a Packaged Application
3. Using the Maven Plugin
4. Using External Tomcat
5. Using the Gradle Plugin

The above all the ways are explained at https://www.javaguides.net/2018/09/different-ways-of-running-spring-boot-appilcation.html.