Excelsior JET is a compliant Java SE JVM (yes, it has passed the awesome huge JCK testsuite).
Today news: Excelsior JET 6.5 supports the core of Eclipse Runtime (Equinox OSGi) at the JVM level. Specifically, wiring OSGi bundles, consistency checking before execution and lazy activation of OSGi bundles are supported.
What are the benefits of deploying applications with the JVM that serves as an OSGi container?
As Excelsior JET supports ahead-of-time compilation, the developers of commercial Eclipse RCP and Equinox applications benefit from the ultimate code obfuscation and protection of sensitive data: the applications can be compiled down to native code executables and distributed without the original jar files. Java decompilers are left at bay.
Moreover, merging Java and Equinox Runtimes results in the most secure environment for running Eclipse RCP applications. The environment blocks tampering with OSGi bundles and injecting unauthorized code via Java classloading hooks by protecting the Eclipse Runtime itself.
Finally, the consistency of Eclipse RCP applications can be checked statically to prevent run-time errors.
Flash demo, customers’ success stories, sample RCP applications compiled to native code (including the Eclipse IDE) and fully functional trial downloads are available here.
Official press-release
Excelsior JET home page
P.S. This new version of Excelsior JET is mostly focused on Eclipse RCP. However, the implemented Java Runtime technology can be used in other areas where OSGi shines, e.g. for Spring DM. We would greatly appreciate your feedback on this topic.
Tags: eclipse, Java, osgi, rcp
The powerful OSGi…
The Eclipse Runtime enables you to create a well-formed modular architecture for Java applications. Each OSGi bundle has a unique name space and explicitly declares the imported/exported packages, and the Runtime enforces these rules.
… strikes back
However, arranging application jars into a set of OSGi bundles may be difficult and error-prone, especially if the application jars are “strongly connected”, that is, have lots of cross-references. The typical issues that may arise are
- redundant classes: two jars contain classes with the same package and class name and the jars are placed in the same OSGi bundle. In this case, the classes from one jar will be actually used at run time and the others become “deployment baggage”
- absent classes: a piece of code references a class that cannot be found within the bundle and is not exported from the other bundles. Unless the “wanted” class appears at run time, ClassNotFoundException will be thrown when control reaches that code.
If your test suite does not achieve 100% code coverage (including third-party jars), there is a chance that the problem will manifest itself on end user systems.
Excelsior JET to the rescue
To detect such inconsistencies before deployment, you may use Excelsior JET 6.5. The JET Control Panel can analyze your Eclipse RCP application and report the found issues. Under the covers, it takes the OSGi bundles of your application and statically applies the resolution procedure used by the Eclipse Runtime as if the application was started and the bundles were loaded.
The results
When implementing this feature, we were really curious if such warnings would be found in real Eclipse RCP applications, and the answer came soon. Here go two examples:
Eclipse Classic IDE 3.4 (Ganymede)
| Redundant (duplicated) classes |
Referenced absent classes |
Unresolved super classes |
| 7 |
138 |
18 |
A large commercial RCP application
| Redundant (duplicated) classes |
Referenced absent classes |
Unresolved super classes |
| 154 |
299 |
74 |
Note that “unresolved super class” is a severe warning. If the code of a method just references an absent class, say, invokes a method or uses a field of that class, ClassNotFoundException is thrown only when the referencing code is executed. You are lucky if that code is on a rarely executed branch and the enclosing method runs fine in most cases ( of course, this is an optimistic assumption 
. On the contrary, an absent super class prevents any usage of any classes derived from it because ClassNotFoundException will be thrown immediately when loading such a derived class.
Finally, if the application works flawlessly since it never uses the problematic classes, what is the point of deploying them to end user systems?
Try it yourself
To avoid surprises, check your Eclipse RCP application for consistency before deployment:
- Download and install Excelsior JET 6.5
- Start the JET Control Panel and click “Eclipse RCP Application” on the welcome screen
- Specify the directory to which your RCP application was exported either by the Product Export Wizard or by an automated build process
- Go to the page Classpath and press the “Check consistency” button in the bottom pane
As analysis completes, the detailed report will be displayed in a separate dialog.
You may then inspect the problematic bundles and classes and get the report in text form.
Take care!
Tags: eclipse, rcp
As you may have read in our August 1st announcement, Excelsior JET 6.5 will provide support for the Equinox OSGi runtime, enabling you to protect Eclipse RCP applications from reverse engineering and tampering.
We have just published Excelsior JET 6.5 beta 2, along with two natively compiled RCP applications to illustrate its capabilities:
Here is what’s new in beta 2:
Eclipse RCP Support
- Numerous bug fixes and overall stability improvements
- Over 90% of Eclipse Unit Tests have passed on the compiled Eclipse IDE
Performance improvements
- java.util.zip.*: access to jar/zip archives speeded up
- JNI: substantially reduced overhead of calling Java methods from native methods
Tags: eclipse, osgi, rcp
Here is the best piŃture of the August 1st total solar eclipse in Novosibirsk that I have seen so far. Make sure to click it for full-size view.
Photo courtesy of Alexey Lubkin, http://alexl.ru
Tags: eclipse
We are announcing our commercial Eclipse offering today, just a couple hours after watching a real total solar eclipse! No big surprise here, though. We have implemented support for the Equinox OSGi runtime in Excelsior JET, so the next version will enable you to protect Eclipse RCP applications from reverse engineering and tampering.
Excelsior JET 6.5 beta 1, capable of compiling Eclipse the IDE, is already available. The final release is scheduled for 1Q 2009.
Tags: eclipse, equinox, osgi, protect, rcp, secure
Excelsior has joined the Eclipse Foundation as an Add-In Provider. It turned out there are no other members from Russia, even though a number of Eclipse contributors, committers, and even project leads are based here. (In fact, the lead of the DLTK project is based right in our city.) So we are proud to be the first Russian corporate member of the Eclipse Foundation.
One of the obligations of an Add-In Provider member is to make a commercial Eclipse-based offering in 12 months. Our offering will be a tool designed for developers of (commercial) Eclipse RCP applications. We plan to announce it and make a public beta available on August 1st, 2008, so stay tuned.
I kindly invite industry analysts and authors covering Eclipse RCP to contact me to receive information and get the beta download about one week before the official annoucement. My contact is at the bottom of
The Official Press-Release
Tags: eclipse, equinox, foundation, osgi, rcp
