How can I configure the heap size when starting a Spring Boot application with embedded Tomcat?

Question

I am trying to deploy a Spring Boot powered web app to production. The app is built with Spring Boot 1.0.1 and has the default Tomcat 7 embedded as application server. I want to allocate larger memory to the app when start the app with java -jar myapp.jar command line.

Should I use JVM parameter such as -Xms -Xmx or use environment variable such as JAVA_OPTS? I have tried to look for the answer in documentation or google it, but I did not get an answer. Can anyone give some hints?

score 75 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:44

75

If starting the application with the spring-boot plugin:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.jvmArguments="-Xmx512m" -Drun.profiles=dev

Otherwise if running java -jar:

java -Xmx512m -Dspring.profiles.active=dev -jar app.jar

edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:44

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 07 '16 at 03:44

Nicomak

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This doesn't seem to work for Spring Boot 2.0.0.M6. The [Spring Boot Maven plugin documentation](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/maven-plugin/examples/run-debug.html) specifies that it should work, but it doesn't. I see two options, either specify the configuration into the pom.xml (that works), or specify the version of the Spring Boot Maven plugin to be 1.5.9-RELEASE (that works too). – Vlad Dinulescu Dec 23 '17 at 12:51
Like Vlad Dinulescu mentioned it works only with a set of Spring Boot versions. For one version it worked, for 2.0.3.RELEASE it doesn't. Solution in answer by Zhang Buzz works. – hipokito Sep 13 '18 at 19:55

score 45 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:41

45

Since this is specifically a Spring Boot question, I'd argue that a more useful answer than @DaveSyer's is this:

You can drop a .conf file in the same directory as your WAR file that is effectively a shell script.

For example,

$ ls
myapp.conf
myapp.war
$ cat myapp.conf
export JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx1024m -Xms256m"

Any configuration you do there will be run before the Spring Boot embedded Tomcat starts up. Personally, I version control a .conf.example file in my application itself and then drop a copy of it on each server I deploy to.

Of course, anything you set in that .conf file is overridable with command-line operations.

edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:41

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 12 '15 at 19:59

inanutshellus

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5

This is so beautiful. And it works for .jar files as well. I <3 Spring Boot – dustmachine Jun 10 '16 at 15:40
Since which version is available? – lrkwz Dec 07 '17 at 17:18
1

I tried with spring boot 1.5.9, but it didn't pickup my conf: export JAVA_OPTS="java.net.preferIPv4Stack=true" in .conf file named the same as jar file. Executed with java -jar using nohup. – Mahesh Dec 19 '17 at 14:43

score 26 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:35

26

Just use whatever normal mechanism you would to set up the JVM. Documentation is available on the command line:

$ java -X
...
-Xms<size>        Set initial Java heap size
-Xmx<size>        Set maximum Java heap size
...

edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:35

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 14 '14 at 23:37

Dave Syer

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So, can I increase it way more than normal(like 10X)? What will be the overhead for application or JVM or machine? – Satish Patro May 23 '19 at 05:53

score 18 · Answer 4 · edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:46

18

For Spring Boot 2, you have to specify the heap size in the pom.xml file as below:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <jvmArguments>-Xmx64m</jvmArguments>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:46

Peter Mortensen

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answered Aug 26 '18 at 05:12

Zhang Buzz

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score 14 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 06 '20 at 20:52

For Spring Boot 1, the Maven argument to specify in the plugin configuration is jvmArguments, and the user property is run.jvmArguments:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.jvmArguments="-Xms2048m -Xmx4096m"

For Spring Boot 2, the Maven argument to specify in the plugin configuration is also jvmArguments, but the user property is now spring-boot.run.jvmArguments:

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.jvmArguments="-Xms2048m -Xmx4096m"

So if you use the plugin configuration way, both for Spring Boot 1 and 2 you can do that:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <jvmArguments>
            -Xms4048m
            -Xmx8096m
        </jvmArguments>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Property spring-boot.run.jvmArguments works. Thanks. – kirenpillay Oct 26 '19 at 07:51 — kirenpillay, Oct 26 '19 at 07:51

How can I configure the heap size when starting a Spring Boot application with embedded Tomcat?

5 Answers5

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