Java Microservices - Environment Setup

This chapter will guide you on how to prepare a development environment to start your work with Java Based Microservices. It will also teach you how to set up JDK, Maven and STS on your machine before you set up Spring Boot Framework for Microservices −

Step 1 - Setup Java Development Kit (JDK)

You can download the latest version of SDK from Oracle's Java site − Java SE Downloads. You will find instructions for installing JDK in downloaded files, follow the given instructions to install and configure the setup. Finally set PATH and JAVA_HOME environment variables to refer to the directory that contains java and javac, typically java_install_dir/bin and java_install_dir respectively.

If you are running Windows and have installed the JDK in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-21, you would have to put the following line in your C:\autoexec.bat file.

set PATH=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-21;%PATH% 
set JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-21

Alternatively, on Windows NT/2000/XP, you will have to right-click on My Computer, select Properties → Advanced → Environment Variables. Then, you will have to update the PATH value and click the OK button.

On Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.), if the SDK is installed in /usr/local/jdk-21 and you use the C shell, you will have to put the following into your .cshrc file.

setenv PATH /usr/local/jdk-21/bin:$PATH 
setenv JAVA_HOME /usr/local/jdk-21

Alternatively, if you use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) like Borland JBuilder, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, or Sun ONE Studio, you will have to compile and run a simple program to confirm that the IDE knows where you have installed Java. Otherwise, you will have to carry out a proper setup as given in the document of the IDE.

Step 2 - Setup Spring Tool for Eclipse

All the examples in this tutorial have been written using Spring Tool for Ecliose. So we would suggest you should have the latest version of Spring Tool for Eclipse installed on your machine.

To install Spring Tools IDE, download the latest Spring Tools binaries from https://spring.io/tools. Once you download the installation, unpack the binary distribution into a convenient location. For example, in C:\sts on Windows, or /usr/local/sts on Linux/Unix and finally set PATH variable appropriately.

String Tool for Eclipse can be started by executing the following commands on Windows machine, or you can simply double-click on eclipse.exe

%C:\sts\SpringTools.exe 

SpringTools can be started by executing the following commands on Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.) machine −

$/usr/local/sts/SpringToolSuite4

After a successful startup, if everything is fine then it should display the following result −

Step 3 - Download Maven Archive

Download Maven 3.9.8 from https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi.

Step 4 - Extract the Maven Archive

Extract the archive, to the directory you wish to install Maven 3.9.8. The subdirectory apache-maven-3.9.8 will be created from the archive.

Step 5 - Set Maven Environment Variables

Add M2_HOME, M2, MAVEN_OPTS to environment variables.

Step 6 - Add Maven bin Directory Location to System Path

Now append M2 variable to System Path.

Step 7 - Verify Maven Installation

Now open console and execute the following mvn command.

Finally, verify the output of the above commands, which should be as follows −

Apache Maven 3.9.8 (36645f6c9b5079805ea5009217e36f2cffd34256)
Maven home: C:\Program Files\Apache\apache-maven-3.9.8
Java version: 21.0.2, vendor: Oracle Corporation, runtime: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-21
Default locale: en_IN, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "windows 11", version: "10.0", arch: "amd64", family: "windows"

Apache Maven 3.9.8 (36645f6c9b5079805ea5009217e36f2cffd34256)
Java version: 21.0.2
Java home: /usr/local/java-current/jre

Apache Maven 3.9.8 (36645f6c9b5079805ea5009217e36f2cffd34256)
Java version: 21.0.2
Java home: /Library/Java/Home/jre

Step 8 - Setup Postman

Postman can be installed in operating systems like Mac, Windows and Linux. It is basically an independent application which can be installed in the following ways −

• Postman can be installed from the Chrome Extension (will be available only in Chrome browser).

• It can be installed as a standalone application.

To download Postman as a standalone application in Windows, navigate to the following link https://www.postman.com/downloads/

For installation steps, you can visit our Postman Tutorial Page Postman - Environment Setup.