# Jruby Application distribution

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-application-distribution/145743>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 13, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-application-distribution/145743 "2008-08-13T15:50:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-application-distribution/145743/1 "2008-08-13T15:50:33Z")

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Hi All

Apologies if this is a FAQ but I’ve not been able to find it.

I am considering writing an app that would run on many different  
platforms, Linux x86, mainframe linux, AIX and Windows are likely.  
The Java runtime environments will already be installed on all of  
these but the SDK won’t and I am not likely to be allowed to install  
the SDK on the many machines that would run the app.

Is it possible to package up my ruby app, and a stripped down Jruby  
for distribution, requiring only the JRE on the target machine?

Thanks

Steve.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-application-distribution/145743/2 "2008-08-13T18:22:36Z")

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removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> Is it possible to package up my ruby app, and a stripped down Jruby  
> for distribution, requiring only the JRE on the target machine?

Absolutely. Look at the rawr library.

[http://gitorious.org/projects/rawr](http://gitorious.org/projects/rawr)

It offers a variety of ways to bundle up JRuby apps. Happy Camper uses  
it when distributing our commercial apps.

–  
James B.

[www.happycamperstudios.com](http://www.happycamperstudios.com) - Wicked Cool Coding  
[www.jamesbritt.com](http://www.jamesbritt.com) - Playing with Better Toys  
[www.ruby-doc.org](http://www.ruby-doc.org) - Ruby Help & Documentation  
[www.rubystuff.com](http://www.rubystuff.com) - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2008, 4:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/jruby-application-distribution/145743/3 "2008-08-14T04:02:30Z")

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removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> Is it possible to package up my ruby app, and a stripped down Jruby  
> for distribution, requiring only the JRE on the target machine?

James already mentioned Rawr, but I wanted to jump in and mention that  
the “stripped-down” question has come up before. Yes, we would love to  
have a stripped down deployment for JRuby, but we haven’t done that just  
yet. Mostly it’s because the same things we’d strip out are the ones  
that reduce startup time or make it possible to run JRuby as fast as  
possible in limited environments like applets.

But it’s definitely a direction we’re looking at. The ability to take a  
single file and have basically an entire Ruby implementation is  
obviously huge, and if it’s possible to make that file only contain the  
parts of Ruby you need…all the better.

- Charlie