Classloader leaks VI – “This means war!” (Leak Prevention library)

This post is intended to conclude the series about classloader leaks, and I want to use it to declare war! (Not as in Web application archive though…)

I have decided to pursue the fight against classloader leaks, and I invite you to join me. For this purpose I have created a project on GitHub called classloader-leak-prevention. The project consists of two parts.

Classloader leak protection listener

First and foremost there is a component for you to add to your web application, that intends to remove and work around as many of the known issues as possible. This will allow us not to depend on bugs being fixed in third party libraries. Yes, this is somewhat like what Tomcat has built in, but my component covers cases that Tomcat currently does not. Another major advantage is that my component is Application Server independent.

It should be as easy as adding a JAR or .java file, configuring a ServletContextListener in web.xml, and you should be protected against java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space caused by your app leaking classloaders (you could still run out of PermGen however, or other apps on the same server may leak). In due time, I hope that parts of it will be configurable to your needs (check back here for updates). If it is not configurable enough, feel free to subclass or create your own GitHub fork.

To configure the main prevention mechanism, just add the component to your project and insert this into your web.xml:

<listener>
  <listener-class>
    se.jiderhamn.classloader.leak.prevention.ClassLoaderLeakPreventor
  </listener-class>
</listener>

It makes sense to keep this listener “outermost” (initializing first, destroying last), so you should normally declare it before any other listeners in web.xml.

Maven

The library is available in Maven Central with the following details:

<dependency>
  <groupId>se.jiderhamn</groupId>
  <artifactId>classloader-leak-prevention</artifactId>
  <version>1.15.2</version>
</dependency>

Download

Non-Maven users can download the JAR with the current version (1.15.2) of the project » here «.

Configuration

The context listener has a number of settings, see the readme on GitHub.

Classloader leak detection / test framework

Another part of the project, is a framework that allows the creation of JUnit tests, that confirms classloader leaks in third party APIs. It is also possible to test leak prevention mechanisms to confirm that the leak really is avoided.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache 2 license, which allows you to include modified versions of the code in your distributed software, without having to release your source code.