Tag: java

2023 Free / Open Source Software Accomplishments

I find it hard to believe, but it is true: another year has wrapped up. With the conclusion of 2023, I’m looking back at some of my free and open-source software accomplishments over those 12 months. My contributions are, once again, all over the place: different languages, industries, technology stacks, and architectural layers. I made … Continue reading 2023 Free / Open Source Software Accomplishments →

Improving the Reproducibility of Spring Boot’s Docker Image Builder

Reproducible builds are big wins for security, maintainability, and sanity. If you don’t like it when nothing has changed, yet your build suddenly breaks or doesn’t produce the same output, then improving reproducibility is for you. By default, Spring Boot’s Docker/OCI image building solutions, bootBuildImage (in Gradle) and spring-boot:build-image (in Maven), do not operate reproducibly. … Continue reading Improving the Reproducibility of Spring Boot’s Docker Image Builder →

Identifying, Reporting, and Fixing CVE-2021-22119: DoS Vulnerability in Spring Security OAuth 2.0

In March 2021, I observed troubling behavior in multiple applications I supported that are built using Spring Boot: they would occasionally stop responding. Eventually, I tracked down the root cause to a DoS (Denial of Service) vulnerability in Spring Security OAuth 2.0: a simple shell script could take down any affected web application. Respecting the … Continue reading Identifying, Reporting, and Fixing CVE-2021-22119: DoS Vulnerability in Spring Security OAuth 2.0 →

Cypress Testing Integrated with Gradle and Spring Boot

Cypress is a great testing framework for “anything that runs in a browser” allowing for clean, maintainable end to end tests. However, these tests can difficult and annoying to for developers to run, especially those who aren’t front end specialists. The following covers getting existing Cypress tests integrated and easily running within the Gradle-based build … Continue reading Cypress Testing Integrated with Gradle and Spring Boot →

Contributing Improved Security to JavaMelody with Content Security Policy

JavaMelody is a web based monitoring tool frequently run in production environments, providing insights including CPU usage, hot spots in code, database connection pool utilization, and more. I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve security, so when a security scan pointed out that the JavaMelody web interface didn’t have a Content Security Policy … Continue reading Contributing Improved Security to JavaMelody with Content Security Policy →

Lighthouse Performance Testing

Lighthouse is a great way to establish a build-measure-learn feedback loop resulting in continuous value creation by testing ideas in the areas of SEO, performance, accessibility, and more. In this article, I’ll cover what Lighthouse is and how to add it a project with examples covering pure Javascript (node) projects and Gradle projects (with any … Continue reading Lighthouse Performance Testing →

The How and Why Automating Dependency Updates

Organizations already automate running builds, executing tests, and performing deployments to free developers from tedium and improve reliability. The next step is to use automation to improve projects. Tools (bots) can submit pull requests that fix typos, optimize images, and more. I’ve had a great positive experience using a bot to perform the tedious task … Continue reading The How and Why Automating Dependency Updates →

Testing a Java application on Windows without Windows

Java is supposed to be “write once, run anywhere” but in practice, there are always platform differences that can and do result in bugs. For that reason, and because in general it’s a good idea to test as much as possible, it’s nice to run tests (even for Java applications) on multiple platforms. As evidence … Continue reading Testing a Java application on Windows without Windows →