Spring Boot App fails when run as a service but works fine when run from command line

Question

I am running an Ubunut Linux Server and I am trying to run my Spring Boot Application as a service.

I have created a file in /etc/systemd/system/example.service with the following content:

[Unit]
Description = Java Test Service
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target
[Service]
User=beeadmin
ExecStart=/home/beeadmin/beebackend/target/backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
SuccessExitStatus=143
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

The application starts but when i check the status i receive the following error:

Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar[73319]:         at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.doResolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:1372) ~[spring-beans-6.1.1.jar!/:6.1.1]
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar[73319]:         at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.resolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:1348) ~[spring-beans-6.1.1.jar!/:6.1.1]
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar[73319]:         at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$AutowiredFieldElement.resolveFieldValue(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:769) ~[spring-beans-6.1.1.jar!/:6.1.1]
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar[73319]:         at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$AutowiredFieldElement.inject(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:752) ~[spring-beans-6.1.1.jar!/:6.1.1]
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar[73319]:         at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.InjectionMetadata.inject(InjectionMetadata.java:145) ~[spring-beans-6.1.1.jar!/:6.1.1]
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar[73319]:         at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.postProcessProperties(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:493) ~[spring-beans-
6.1.1.jar!/:6.1.1]
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar[73319]:         ... 59 common frames omitted
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide systemd[1]: beeguide.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jan 05 11:58:43 beeguide systemd[1]: beeguide.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

There seems to be a problem with some autowired dependecies. I can not figure out why it executes normally when i run it like this:

java -jar /home/user/app/target/app.jar

I was expecting the .jar file to execute like it did when i run the .jar file by itself.

Answer 1

The ExecStart command in your service file should include the same java -jar command as when you're starting the app locally. Something like this:

Environment="JAVA_HOME=/path/to/java/home"
ExecStart=${JAVA_HOME}/bin/java -jar /var/myapp/myapp.jar

The Spring Boot documentation has further guidance on how to do this.