After nine months of incubation with the Eclipse Foundation, Eclipse JKube 1.0.0 is finally here. This release marks the final deprecation of the great Fabric8 Maven Plugin (FMP) project. JKube is a complete replacement of FMP and includes all of the major features. Projects relying on FMP to create Apache Maven Java containers should migrate to Eclipse JKube to take full advantage of the new features, bug fixes, and upstream project maintenance described in this article.
JKube is a collection of plugins plus a standalone Java library that fit into your Maven project. If you have a Java project that needs to get deployed into Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift, this is the right tool for you. JKube takes care of everything related to the cluster deployment while you, as a developer, get to concentrate on implementing your application without worrying about where it needs to be deployed.
How does Eclipse JKube work?
JKube provides specific goals and a set of developer tools for meeting them. Goals include checking container logs, watching for project changes, and debugging your Java application in the cloud. Once these goals are configured, you can use JKube to build Java container images using a variety of build strategies, including Source-to-Image (S2I). Just add our kubernetes-maven-plugin or openshift-maven-plugin dependency and then your application is ready to be built for and deployed into your Kubernetes or OpenShift cluster.
JKube infers its configuration from opinionated defaults that work for most Java applications. If this setup is not suitable for your project, you can always customize the plugin to suit your specific project requirements. The project also generates Kubernetes and OpenShift resource descriptors and configurations, and it provides the means to deploy them into your k8s-compatible cluster.
What’s new?
If you are coming to Eclipse JKube from the Fabric8 Maven Plugin, you'll be pleased to see these new features and updates in JKube 1.0.0 GA:
- Support for the S2I build strategy for all of our generators.
- Support for a Jib (docker-less) build and push.
- Separate plugins for Kubernetes and OpenShift, including specific resources and build strategies for OpenShift.
In addition, all base images are based on Java 11.
Learn more about Eclipse JKube
If you want to know more about Eclipse JKube, visit the project website, check our quickstarts, and visit the Katacoda courses. You can also reach us on Gitter, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!
Praise to the original Fabric8 contributors
Eclipse JKube's release is possible thanks to the hard work and original code developed by the Fabric8 Maven Plugin project team.
Last updated: May 31, 2023