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GraalVM support

junixsocket supports running in GraalVM, both in Hotspot/OpenJDK-mode as well as in Native Image mode with Substrate VM (ahead-of-time compilation).

Some optional features, such as junixsocket-rmi, are currently unavailable in Native Image mode.

Support has been tested with GraalVM 22.1.0.

Hotspot VM mode

In this mode, GraalVM behaves mostly like OpenJDK.

Native Image/Substrate VM mode

In this mode, GraalVM attempts ahead-of-time compilation of our code, resulting in an executable binary of your entire Java application.

To achieve this with junixsocket, GraalVM needs some specific “Reachability Metadata”. Since junixsocket 2.6.0, this metadata is included with junixsocket-common and junixsocket-selftest artifacts.

junixsocket selftest Native Image

You can try junixsocket's Native Image integration by running its selftests natively.

Prerequisites

Make sure GraalVM is enabled

For example:

# export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/graalvm-ce-java17-22.2.0/Contents/Home
# export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

Make sure your build system works

    ## Add dependencies if necessary, e.g.:
	sudo apt-get install gcc zlib1g-dev

Build the native image

# Build the platform-native executable:
cd junixsocket/junixsocket-selftest-native-image
mvn -Dnative clean package

# Run the platform-native executable:
./target/junixsocket-selftest-native-image-X.Y.Z

NOTE: (Replace X.Y.Z with the actual version)

musl / Alpine Linux compatibility

The above binary, even though it currently cannot be built on Alpine Linux (musl), will run after adding gcompat:

sudo apk add gcompat

Known issues

native-image needs a lot of RAM

When you see an error message Error: Image build request failed with exit status 137 coming from the Maven build of junixsocket-selftest-native-image, there was not enough RAM, and the kernel terminated the process. Either add some swap space or more RAM.

NoSuchMethodException: …DatagramSocketImpl.peekData

When you see errors like this, try building with a Java 19 GraalVM instead of Java 11 GraalVM:

Fatal error: org.graalvm.compiler.debug.GraalError: com.oracle.svm.util.ReflectionUtil$ReflectionUtilError: java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: org.newsclub.net.unix.vsock.AFVSOCKDatagramSocketImpl.peekData(java.net.DatagramPacket)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.pointsto/com.oracle.graal.pointsto.util.AnalysisFuture.setException(AnalysisFuture.java:49)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:269)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.pointsto/com.oracle.graal.pointsto.util.AnalysisFuture.ensureDone(AnalysisFuture.java:63)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.pointsto/com.oracle.graal.pointsto.meta.AnalysisElement.lambda$execute$2(AnalysisElement.java:170)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.pointsto/com.oracle.graal.pointsto.util.CompletionExecutor.executeCommand(CompletionExecutor.java:193)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.pointsto/com.oracle.graal.pointsto.util.CompletionExecutor.lambda$executeService$0(CompletionExecutor.java:177)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinTask$RunnableExecuteAction.exec(ForkJoinTask.java:1426)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinTask.doExec(ForkJoinTask.java:290)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool$WorkQueue.topLevelExec(ForkJoinPool.java:1020)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.scan(ForkJoinPool.java:1656)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.runWorker(ForkJoinPool.java:1594)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinWorkerThread.run(ForkJoinWorkerThread.java:183)
Caused by: com.oracle.svm.util.ReflectionUtil$ReflectionUtilError: java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: org.newsclub.net.unix.vsock.AFVSOCKDatagramSocketImpl.peekData(java.net.DatagramPacket)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.base/com.oracle.svm.util.ReflectionUtil.lookupMethod(ReflectionUtil.java:82)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.base/com.oracle.svm.util.ReflectionUtil.lookupMethod(ReflectionUtil.java:69)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.builder/com.oracle.svm.core.jdk.JNIRegistrationUtil.method(JNIRegistrationUtil.java:91)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.builder/com.oracle.svm.hosted.jdk.JNIRegistrationJavaNet.lambda$registerDatagramSocketCheckOldImpl$0(JNIRegistrationJavaNet.java:230)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.pointsto/com.oracle.graal.pointsto.meta.AnalysisElement$SubtypeReachableNotification.lambda$notifyCallback$0(AnalysisElement.java:129)
	at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
	... 10 more
Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: org.newsclub.net.unix.vsock.AFVSOCKDatagramSocketImpl.peekData(java.net.DatagramPacket)
	at java.base/java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethod(Class.java:2475)
	at org.graalvm.nativeimage.base/com.oracle.svm.util.ReflectionUtil.lookupMethod(ReflectionUtil.java:74)
	... 15 more

Building and Maintaining junixsocket's Reachability Metadata

The required GraalVM metadata is currently obtained by running junixsocket's selftest with GraalVM's native-image-agent, and then manually separated into configurations that are relevant for junixsocket-common, and those specifically for junixsocket-selftest.

A shell script that exercises this path is provided (tested on macOS):

# Make sure GraalVM is enabled, e.g.:
export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/graalvm-ce-java17-22.2.0/Contents/Home
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH      

# Run selftest with native-image-gent, build and run native-image version of selftest
cd junixsocket/junixsocket-native-graalvm
bin/build-selftest

Before a new release is drafted, this script needs to be run.

If there are metadata changes, they will be reported using the above script.

The new metadata files are stored under junixsocket/junixsocket-native-graalvm/output/META-INF/native-image/.

Their content needs to be analyzed and distributed among junixsocket-common, junixsocket-selftest, etc., by storing the relevant metadata in the corresponding files under src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image (subdirectories artifactId/groupId, e.g., com.kohlschutter.junixsocket/junixsocket-native-graalvm).