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Deploy a Helidon Web App to Azure App Service with Maven

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In this quickstart, you'll use the Maven Plugin for Azure App Service Web Apps to deploy a Helidon application to Azure App Service on Linux. You'll want to choose Java SE deployment over Tomcat and WAR files when you want to consolidate your app's dependencies, runtime, and configuration into a single deployable artifact.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Prerequisites

Sign in to Azure CLI

The simplest and easiest way to get the Maven Plugin deploying your Helidon application is by using Azure CLI.

Sign into your Azure account by using the Azure CLI:

az login

Follow the instructions to complete the sign-in process.

Create sample app from MicroProfile Starter

In this section, you'll create a Helidon application and test it locally.

  1. Open a web browser and navigate to the MicroProfile Starter site.

    Screenshot showing MicroProfile Starter with Helidon runtime selected.

  2. Input or Select the field like follows.

    Field Value
    groupId com.microsoft.azure.samples.helidon
    artifactId helidon-hello-azure
    MicroProfile Version MP 3.2
    Java SE Version Java 11
    MicroProfile Runtime Helidon
    Examples for Specifications Metrics, OpenAPI

  3. Select DOWNLOAD to download the project.

  4. Unzip the archive file; for example:

    unzip helidon-hello-azure.zip

  5. Or you can create the project with following command:

    mvn -U archetype:generate -DinteractiveMode=false \
    -DarchetypeGroupId=io.helidon.archetypes \
    -DarchetypeArtifactId=helidon-quickstart-se \
    -DarchetypeVersion=2.0.0 \
    -DgroupId=com.microsoft.azure.samples.helidon \
    -DartifactId=helidon-hello-azure \
    -Dpackage=com.microsoft.azure.samples.helidon

  6. Change directory to the completed project; for example:

    cd helidon-hello-azure/

  7. Build the JAR file using Maven; for example:

    mvn clean package

  8. When the web app has been created, start the web app using Maven; for example:

    java -jar target/helidon-hello-azure.jar

  9. Test the web app by browsing to it locally using a web browser. For example, you could use the following command if you have curl available:

    curl http://localhost:8080/greet

  10. You should see the following message displayed: Hello World

Configure Maven Plugin for Azure App Service

In this section, you'll configure the Helidon project pom.xml file so that Maven can deploy the app to Azure App Service on Linux.

  1. Open the pom.xml file in a code editor.

  2. In the <build> section of the pom.xml file, insert the following <plugin> entry inside the <plugins> tag.

    <build>
  <finalName>helidon-hello-azure</finalName>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>com.microsoft.azure</groupId>
      <artifactId>azure-webapp-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>1.10.0</version>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

  3. Then you can configure the deployment, run the following Maven command:

    mvn azure-webapp:config

    Select the following options when prompted:

    Input Field Input/Select Value
    Define value for OS(Default: Linux): 1. linux
    Define value for javaVersion(Default: Java 8): 1. Java 11
    Confirm (Y/N) y

    This command produces output similar to the following example:

    [INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------< com.microsoft.azure.samples.helidon:helidon-hello-azure >-------
[INFO] Building myproject 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- azure-webapp-maven-plugin:1.10.0:config (default-cli) @ helidon-hello-azure ---
Define value for OS(Default: Linux):
1. linux [*]
2. windows
3. docker
Enter index to use: 1
Define value for javaVersion(Default: Java 8):
1. Java 11
2. Java 8 [*]
Enter index to use: 1
Please confirm webapp properties
AppName : helidon-hello-azure-1600998900939
ResourceGroup : helidon-hello-azure-1600998900939-rg
Region : westeurope
PricingTier : PremiumV2_P1v2
OS : Linux
RuntimeStack : JAVA 11-java11
Deploy to slot : false
Confirm (Y/N)? : y
[INFO] Saving configuration to pom.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  02:44 min
[INFO] Finished at: 2020-09-25T10:57:35+09:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

  4. Add the <appSettings> section to the <configuration> section of PORT, WEBSITES_PORT, and WEBSITES_CONTAINER_START_TIME_LIMIT. Add the <include>/libs/*.jar</include> to the resources in deployment.

    <plugin>
  <groupId>com.microsoft.azure</groupId>
  <artifactId>azure-webapp-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>1.10.0</version>
  <configuration>
    <schemaVersion>V2</schemaVersion>
    <resourceGroup>microprofile</resourceGroup>
    <appName>helidon-hello-azure-1591663020899</appName>
    <pricingTier>P1v2</pricingTier>
    <region>japaneast</region>
    <runtime>
      <os>linux</os>
      <javaVersion>java11</javaVersion>
      <webContainer>java11</webContainer>
    </runtime>
    <appSettings>
      <property>
        <name>PORT</name>
        <value>8080</value>
      </property>
      <property>
        <name>WEBSITES_PORT</name>
        <value>8080</value>
      </property>
      <property>
        <name>WEBSITES_CONTAINER_START_TIME_LIMIT</name>
        <value>600</value>
      </property>
    </appSettings>
    <deployment>
      <resources>
        <resource>
          <directory>${project.basedir}/target</directory>
          <includes>
            <include>*.jar</include>
            <include>/libs/*.jar</include>
          </includes>
        </resource>
      </resources>
    </deployment>
  </configuration>

Deploy the app to Azure

After you've configured all of the settings in the preceding sections of this article, you're ready to deploy your web app to Azure. To do so, use the following steps:

  1. From the command prompt or terminal window that you were using earlier, rebuild the JAR file using Maven if you made any changes to the pom.xml file; for example:

    mvn clean package

  2. Deploy your web app to Azure by using Maven; for example:

    mvn azure-webapp:deploy

Maven will deploy your web app to Azure. If the web app or web app plan doesn't already exist, it will be created for you. It might take a few minutes before the web app is visible at the URL shown in the output. Navigate to the URL in a Web browser. You should see the message displayed: Hello World

When your web has been deployed, you can manage it through the Azure portal.

Your web app will be listed in App Services.

You can access to your web app by selecting Browse on the Overview page for your web app.

Verify that the deployment was successful by using the same cURL command as before(/data/hello), using your web app URL from the Portal instead of localhost. You should see the following message displayed: Hello World

Confirm the log stream from the running App Service

You can see (or "tail") the logs from the running App Service. Any calls to console.log in the site code are displayed in the terminal.

az webapp log tail \
    --resource-group microprofile \
    --name helidon-hello-azure-1600998900939

Screenshot of terminal window showing log output.

Clean up resources

When the Azure resources are no longer needed, clean up the resources you deployed by deleting the resource group.

  • From the Azure portal, select Resource group from the left menu.
  • Enter microprofile in the Filter by name field, the resource group created in this tutorial should have this prefix.
  • Select the resource group created in this tutorial.
  • Select Delete resource group from the top menu.

Next steps

To learn more about MicroProfile and Azure, continue to the MicroProfile on Azure documentation center.

MicroProfile on Azure

Additional resources

For more information about the various technologies discussed in this article, see the following articles: