The selection cannot be run on any server

Question

I am trying to learn a bit about spring boot application. Below is the pom.xml file. The problem is that when I try to run the application on server I get the message The selection cannot be run on server. Not sure why this is happening.

I have checked few similar stack overflow questions listed below "The selection cannot be run on any server" and Eclipse Maven Spring: Server Error when I try to Run As Server (Tomcat 7) but couldn't get a solution.

There are no errors or warnings in the problems tab of STS. Also I have configured STS to use Apache tomcat version 9.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.blog</groupId>
    <artifactId>demo</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <name>demo</name>
    <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.3.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath /> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/mysql/mysql-connector-java -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>mysql</groupId>
            <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
            <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Please suggest what has to be done for running this application on server

Solution

What you are dealing with is a Spring boot application which has an embedded battle tested Tomcat server.

To run your application you have to run it as a Java Application or a Spring Boot App.

Check out this and this to find out how to deploy Spring boot app as a war.

Comments

[Abdullah Khan]

Did you try running it as a Spring Boot App / Java Application?

[Sumit Surana]

Tried running it by right clicking on project, then clicked on Run As and then on Spring Boot Application. And it ran perfectly. But I require it to be hosted on a server

[Abdullah Khan]

Please create a separate question for it.

[Sumit Surana]

this didn't gave solution but provided the direction in which I should head to. I solved it by simply adding the dependency spring-boot-starter-web and then when tried running again as a spring-boot-app the application started getting hosted on tomcat without any issues. So thanks for pointing in that direction