Gradle not creating a Tomcat deployable war - spring

Question

I'm running into an issue with building a war with Gradle 4.8.1. Here is the build.gradle:
buildscript {
ext {
springBootVersion = '2.0.3.RELEASE'
}
repositories {
jcenter()
}
dependencies {
classpath "org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}"
}
}
apply plugin: 'idea'
apply plugin: 'io.spring.dependency-management'
apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'maven'
apply plugin: 'org.springframework.boot'
apply plugin: 'war'
archivesBaseName = 'sample'
//war {
// archiveName = 'sample.war'
// group = 'my.group'
// version = '2.0.0-SNAPSHOT'
//}
sourceCompatibility = 1.8
repositories {
jcenter()
maven { url "${nexusUrl}/content/groups/public" }
}
dependencies {
// Spring
compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-actuator'
compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa'
compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-log4j2'
providedRuntime 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-tomcat'
compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web'
testCompile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test'
// Lombok
compile "org.projectlombok:lombok:1.18.0"
// Data
compile ('org.postgresql:postgresql') {
exclude module: 'slf4j-simple'
}
// Http
compile "org.apache.httpcomponents:httpclient:4.5.5"
}
configurations {
all*.exclude module: 'spring-boot-starter-logging'
}
uploadArchives {
repositories {
mavenDeployer {
repository(url: "${nexusUrl}/content/groups/public/") {
authentication(userName: nexusUsername, password: nexusPassword)
}
snapshotRepository(url: "${nexusUrl}/content/repositories/snapshots") {
authentication(userName: nexusUsername, password: nexusPassword)
}
pom.version = '2.0.0-SNAPSHOT'
pom.artifactId = 'sample'
pom.groupId = 'my.group'
}
}
}
I also tried removing the 'maven' plugin, archivesBaseName, and the uploadArchive task while uncommenting the war task and I get the same result. When using uploadArchive the war deploys to the nexus server fine and I get no errors. When deploying the war to tomcat (in both instances) tomcat 7 and 8 throw no errors and I receive no logs from either catalina or the project, although archiveName inside the war task does not properly rename the war. I have tried this on two other machines/tomcat instances with the same result. When building this as a fat jar, or running this in IntelliJ, everything works as expected (including the logging).
Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

It sounds like it is not initializing the servlet at all. Make sure to extend the SpringBootServletInitializer for WAR deployment.
Spring Boot Docs - Traditional Deployment

Answer 2

I was also facing the same issue. The issue is Spring application doesnt get initialized when the war is deployed on tomcat.
After a lot of struggle, I figured out that I needed to extend SpringBootServletInitializer in my application. So my effective code looks like
public class SyncApplication extends SpringBootServletInitializer {
#Override
protected SpringApplicationBuilder configure(SpringApplicationBuilder application) {
return application.sources(SyncApplication.class);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(SyncApplication.class, args);
}
}
Looks like this SpringBootServletInitializer directs war plugins generate bootstrapping code while building the war, and thus spring context is initialized while deploying the app.