Installing JHipster

Installation types

We provide 4 ways of working with JHipster:

• A “local installation with Yarn”, which is the classical way of working with JHipster. Everything is installed on your machine, which can be a little complex to set up, but that’s how most people usually work. In case of doubt, choose this installation.
• A “local installation with NPM”, which is the same as classical “local installation with Yarn”, but using NPM instead of Yarn
• A Vagrant-based “development box”, with all tools already set up in a Ubuntu-based virtual machine.
• A “Docker” container, which brings you a lightweight, virtualized container with JHipster installed.

Local installation with Yarn (recommended for normal users)

1. Install Java 8 from the Oracle website.
2. (Optional) Install a Java build tool.
   • Whether you choose to use Maven or Gradle, you normally don’t have to install anything, as JHipster will automatically install the Maven Wrapper or the Gradle Wrapper for you.
   • If you don’t want to use those wrappers, go to the official Maven website or Gradle website to do your own installation.
3. Install Git from git-scm.com. We recommend you also use a tool like SourceTree if you are starting with Git.
4. Install Node.js from the Node.js website (prefer an LTS version)
5. Install Yarn from the Yarn website
6. Install Yeoman: yarn global add yo
7. Only for AngularJS 1, install Bower: yarn global add bower
8. Only for AngularJS 1, install Gulp: yarn global add gulp-cli
9. Install JHipster: yarn global add generator-jhipster

Note: if you have problem to use these tools globally, be sure you have $HOME/.config/yarn/global/node_modules/.bin in your path.

On Mac or Linux: export PATH="$PATH:`yarn global bin`:$HOME/.config/yarn/global/node_modules/.bin"

To find more information, tips and help, please have a look at the Yeoman “getting starting” guide and at the Yarn documentation before submitting a bug.

Now that JHipster is installed, your next step is to create an application

Local installation with NPM (alternative to Yarn)

1. Install Java 8 from the Oracle website.
2. (Optional) Install a Java build tool.
   • Whether you choose to use Maven or Gradle, you normally don’t have to install anything, as JHipster will automatically install the Maven Wrapper or the Gradle Wrapper for you.
   • If you don’t want to use those wrappers, go to the official Maven website or Gradle website to do your own installation.
3. Install Git from git-scm.com. We recommend you also use a tool like SourceTree if you are starting with Git.
4. Install Node.js from the Node.js website (prefer an LTS version). This will also install npm, which is the node package manager we are using in the next commands.
5. (Recommended) Update NPM: npm install -g npm
6. Install Yeoman: npm install -g yo
7. Only for AngularJS 1, install Bower: npm install -g bower
8. Only for AngularJS 1, install Gulp: npm install -g gulp-cli (If you have previously installed a version of gulp globally, please run npm rm -g gulp to make sure your old version doesn’t collide with gulp-cli)
9. Install JHipster: npm install -g generator-jhipster
10. (Optional) Install Yarn: npm install -g yarn (If so, after generating a project, yarn install will be launched instead of npm install)

You can find here the NPM documentation.

Vagrant box installation

The JHipster development box project gives you a virtual machine with all the necessary tools to develop your JHipster project.

It’s an easy way to get up and running very quickly with JHipster.

Besides JHipster, this virtual machine includes many development tools, as well as Docker, so you should have everything ready for working.

Please go to the JHipster development box page for installation and configuration information.

Docker installation (for advanced users only)

Please note: this Docker image is for running the JHipster generator inside a container. It’s completely different from the Docker and Docker Compose configurations that JHipster will generate, which goal is to run your generated application inside a container

Information

JHipster has a specific Dockerfile, which provides a Docker image.

It makes a Docker “Automated build” that is available on: https://hub.docker.com/r/jhipster/jhipster/

This image will allow you to run JHipster inside Docker.

Prerequisites

This depends on your operating system.

1. Linux: Linux supports Docker out-of-box. You just need to follow the tutorial on the Docker website.
2. Mac & Windows: install the Docker Toolbox to get Docker installed easily.

As the generated files are in your shared folder, they will not be deleted if you stop your Docker container. However, if you don’t want Docker to keep downloading all the Maven and NPM dependencies every time you start the container, you should commit its state or mount a volume.

On Linux, you might need to run the docker command as root user if your user is not part of docker group. It’s a good idea to add your user to docker group so that you can run docker commands as a non-root user. Follow the steps on http://askubuntu.com/a/477554 to do so.

Usage on Linux/Mac Windows (using Docker Toolbox)

Pull the image

Pull the latest JHipster Docker image:

docker image pull jhipster/jhipster

Pull the development JHipster Docker image:

docker image pull jhipster/jhipster:master

You can see all tags here

Run the image

Create a “jhipster” folder in your home directory:

mkdir ~/jhipster

Run the Docker image, with the following options:

• The Docker “/home/jhipster/app” folder is shared to the local “~/jhipster” folder
• Forward all ports exposed by Docker (8080 for the Java application, 9000 for BrowserSync, 3001 for the BrowserSync UI)

docker container run --name jhipster -v ~/jhipster:/home/jhipster/app -v ~/.m2:/home/jhipster/.m2 -p 8080:8080 -p 9000:9000 -p 3001:3001 -d -t jhipster/jhipster

Check if the container is running

To check that your container is running, use the command docker container ps:

CONTAINER ID    IMAGE               COMMAND                 CREATED         STATUS          PORTS                                                       NAMES
4ae16c0539a3    jhipster/jhipster   "tail -f /home/jhipst"  4 seconds ago   Up 3 seconds    0.0.0.0:9000-3001->9000-3001/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8080->8080/tcp    jhipster

Common operations

• To stop the container execute: docker container stop jhipster
• And to start again, execute: docker container start jhipster

In case you update the Docker image (rebuild or pull from the Docker hub), it’s better to remove the existing container, and run the container all over again. To do so, first stop the container, remove it and then run it again:

1. docker container stop jhipster
2. docker container rm jhipster
3. docker image pull jhipster/jhipster
4. docker container run --name jhipster -v ~/jhipster:/home/jhipster/app -v ~/.m2:/home/jhipster/.m2 -p 8080:8080 -p 9000:9000 -p 3001:3001 -d -t jhipster/jhipster

Accessing the container

The easiest way to log into the running container is by executing following command:

docker container exec -it <container_name> bash

If you copy-pasted the above command to run the container, notice that you have to specify jhipster as the container name:

docker container exec -it jhipster bash

You will log in as the “jhipster” user.

If you want to log in as “root”, as the sudo command isn’t available in Ubuntu Xenial, you need to run:

docker container exec -it --user root jhipster bash

Your first project

You can then go to the /home/jhipster/app directory in your container, and start building your app inside Docker:

cd /home/jhipster/app

yo jhipster

Once your application is created, you can run all the normal gulp/bower/maven commands, for example:

./mvnw

Congratulations! You’ve launched your JHipster app inside Docker!

On your host machine, you should be able to :

• Access the running application at http://DOCKER_HOST:8080
• Get all the generated files inside your shared folder