Setting active profile and config location from command line in spring boot

There are two different ways you can add/override spring properties on the command line.

Option 1: Java System Properties (VM Arguments)

It's important that the -D parameters are before your application.jar otherwise they are not recognized.

java -jar -Dspring.profiles.active=prod application.jar

Option 2: Program arguments

java -jar application.jar --spring.profiles.active=prod --spring.config.location=c:\config

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My best practice is to define this as a VM "-D" argument. Please note the differences between spring boot 1.x and 2.x.

The profiles to enable can be specified on the command line:

Spring-Boot 2.x (works only with maven)

-Dspring-boot.run.profiles=local

Spring-Boot 1.x

-Dspring.profiles.active=local

example usage with maven:

Spring-Boot 2.x

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.profiles=local

Spring-Boot 1.x and 2.x

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring.profiles.active=local

Make sure to separate them with a comma for multiple profiles:

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring.profiles.active=local,foo,bar

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.profiles=local,foo,bar

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-Dspring.profiles.active=staging -Dspring.config.location=C:\Config

is not correct.

should be:

--spring.profiles.active=staging --spring.config.location=C:\Config

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There's another way by setting the OS environment variable, SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE.

for eg :

SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=dev gradle clean bootRun

Reference : How to set active Spring profiles

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I had to add this:

bootRun {
    String activeProfile =  System.properties['spring.profiles.active']
    String confLoc = System.properties['spring.config.location']
    systemProperty "spring.profiles.active", activeProfile
    systemProperty "spring.config.location", "file:$confLoc"
}

And now bootRun picks up the profile and config locations.

Thanks a lot @jst for the pointer.

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you can use the following command line:

java -jar -Dspring.profiles.active=[yourProfileName] target/[yourJar].jar

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When setting the profile via the Maven plugin you must do it via run.jvmArguments

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.jvmArguments="-Dspring.profiles.active=production"

With debug option:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.jvmArguments="-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=5005 -Dspring.profiles.active=jpa"

I've seen this trip a lot of people up..hope it helps

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I think your problem is likely related to your spring.config.location not ending the path with "/".

Quote the docs

If spring.config.location contains directories (as opposed to files) they should end in / (and will be appended with the names generated from spring.config.name before being loaded).

http://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/htmlsingle/#boot-features-external-config-application-property-files

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Michael Yin's answer is correct but a better explanation seems to be required!

A lot of you mentioned that -D is the correct way to specify JVM parameters and you are absolutely right. But Michael is also right as mentioned in Spring Boot Profiles documentation.

What is not clear in the documentation, is what kind of parameter it is: --spring.profiles.active is a not a standard JVM parameter so if you want to use it in your IDE fill the correct fields (i.e. program arguments)

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For me helped to add "/" at the end of profiles location.

java -jar myjar.jar --spring.config.additional-location=env/ --spring.profiles.active=prod

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If you use Gradle:

-Pspring.profiles.active=local

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We want to automatically pick property file based upon mentioned the profile name in spring.profiles.active and the path in -Dspring.config.location

application-dev.properties

If we are running jar in Unix OS then we have to use / at the end of -Dspring.config.location otherwise it will give below error.

Error :: java.lang.IllegalStateException: File extension of config file location 'file:/home/xyz/projectName/cfg' is not known to any PropertySourceLoader. If the location is meant to reference a directory, it must end in '/'

Example

java -Dspring.profiles.active=dev -Dspring.config.location=/home/xyz/projectName/cfg/ -jar /home/xyz/project/abc.jar

or

java -jar /home/xyz/project/abc.jar --spring.profiles.active=dev --spring.config.location=/home/xyz/projectName/cfg/

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A way that i do this on intellij is setting an environment variable on the command like so:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/EiL0d.png

In this case i am setting the profile to test

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I was facing similar issues to run tests with different profiles in command line in springboot. I fixed that by first setting the profile and then running the test command like below :

Step 1 : export SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=test(for mac/linux) or SET SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=test(for windows)

Step2 : ./gradlew test --tests "com.maersk.snd.integrationtest.IntegrationTestPOC"

Above commands can be clubbed together like below :

export SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=test && ./gradlew test --tests "com.maersk.snd.integrationtest.IntegrationTestPOC"

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Just as an addon, if you have a property mentioned in your application.properties file and you need to override that property from another config file you can use below property spring.config.additional-location (with -D since you pass from command line) We used to use this because we have one application.properties inside the jar and one external one in each of our servers' config folders, which is used to override any server specific properties.

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