Install the IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty Buildpack into a Cloud Foundry Environment

The WebSphere Application Server Liberty Buildpack makes the Liberty server available in Cloud Foundry. Removal in 24.0.0.8: Availability of the Cloud Foundry Liberty Buildpack on IBM Fix Central stops in August 2024. The strategic alternative is a cloud native buildpack for WebSphere Liberty or Open Liberty that is contributed to the paketo open source community at https://github.com/paketo-buildpacks/liberty. For more information, see Migrate a Java application from Cloud Foundry liberty-for-java buildpacks to the Paketo Buildpack for Liberty.

  • We must have Ruby version 1.9.3 or later installed.
  • This document details how to download the WebSphere Application Server Liberty buildpack using the Linux command line.

Use this task to install the WebSphere Application Server Liberty Buildpack into a Cloud Foundry Environment. If we are a Cloud Foundry administrator, we can install the Liberty buildpack as an admin buildpack making it available to all users within the Cloud Foundry.

Note: Buildpack users do not need to specify the -b option to use the buildpack directly from the administrator.

The WebSphere Application Server Liberty Buildpack is also available at https://github.com/cloudfoundry/ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack where we can find extra documentation.

Install the buildpack into your Cloud Foundry environment

  1. Download the buildpack compressed file from IBM Fix Central.

  2. Run the unzip command to extract the contents of the buildpack ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack-v*.zip file to the ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack buildpack directory.

  3. The WebSphere Application Server Liberty buildpack downloads the default Liberty and IBM JRE binary files for development only. If we have licenses for other binary files we want to use, they need to be accessible with HTTP.

    See Repository structure for personal binary files for details on how to structure this repository.

    1. Update the config/ibmjdk.yml file to point to your JRE binary.

    2. Update the config/liberty.yml file to point to our Liberty binary.

  4. If we are licensed to deploy the buildpack into the environment, we can create a config/licenses.yml file containing the accepted license numbers before packaging. We can find the following license codes in the current IBM SDK, Java Technology Edition and Liberty License documents: 

      IBM_JVM_LICENSE: <jvm license code>
IBM_LIBERTY_LICENSE: <liberty license code>

    Note: After adding the license to the buildpack package, individual applications do not need to accept the license terms with environment variables.

  5. Install Ruby gems needed to package an admin buildpack by running the gem install bundler and bundle install commands.

  6. Run the bundle exec rake package task to create an admin buildpack. 

      rake 'package[zipfile,hosts,version]'

    The zipfile parameter is the name of the generated admin buildpack and includes a relative location that is NOT the current directory. For example, ../my-admin-buildpack.zip can be specified as the zipfile parameter to generate the my-admin-buildpack.zip file in the parent directory instead of the default ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack-480d2de.zip file. For example, 

      rake 'package[../my-admin-buildpack.zip]'

    The hosts parameter is a list of sites that the package task pulls binary files from for inclusion in the admin buildpack. By default, only binary files from the public IBM site are pulled. IBM hosted sites do not include third-party binary files. A package parameter must be specified to indicate that third-party binary files can be included in the admin buildpack for cases where the admin buildpack is used in offline mode. Use * includes all the binary files in the admin buildpack if the download is possible during the packaging. An example of this usage: 

      rake 'package[,*,]'

    The version parameter is the version information that is displayed when an application is deployed to CloudFoundry with the Cloud Foundry command line interface. By default, the displayed version is the latest commit identifier, such as 480d2de. The following example illustrates the displayed version information defaults. 

      Liberty Buildpack Version: 480d2de | git@github.com:cloudfoundry/ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack.git#480d2de

  7. Install the admin buildpack with the cf client as follows. 

      cf create-buildpack ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack-480d2de.zip 1

    • ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack is the name that is given to the admin buildpack.
    • ibm-websphere-liberty-buildpack-480d2de.zip is the path to the compressed file created by the Rake task.
    • 1 is the priority given to the admin buildpack. The lower the number, the higher the priority.

    See the Cloud Foundry documentation for further details.

The WebSphere Application Server Liberty Buildpack is now installed.