Contributing to Payara

Payara is an open source project; as part of this we have specific legal requirements concerning how we distribute code contributed to the project. Before any code contributed by our community is pulled into our repository, we must have a signed Contributor License Agreement from any contributor. This can be downloaded from the main repository at https://github.com/payara/Payara/blob/master/PayaraCLA.pdf and should be signed, scanned, and forwarded to cla@payara.org. As compensation for wading through the legalese, all contributors who send in a signed Contributor License Agreement receive a Payara goodie bag.

As we must also comply with Oracle’s license, the following line should be added to any changed file:

You will need to create a personal GitHub account and fork the repository at GitHub to yourself. There are more detailed guides on GitHub in the guide to forking and guide to contributing to open source projects, but the commands below should get you started:

When on the Payara GitHub page, click on the "Fork" button on the top right. This will create your own fork of Payara as a remote repository on your GitHub account.

Once you have your own up-to-date fork of Payara, you can now clone the repository (creating a local repository on your computer).

Install Git on your local environment and use the below command to download your remote copy of Payara:

This will also add your fork of Payara as "origin" within your local repository. Now add the Payara Git as an upstream to ensure that you are always able to synchronize yourself with the project as it goes forward. Run the following command within your local Git repository:

You are now free to start working on Payara issues, adding new features, or tinkering with the codebase. Updating your fork frequently is cruical, as Payara is under continuous development our master branch is regularly updated with dev and community commits. It is worth synchronizing your repository with the upstream repository you added previously.

To get the latest updates from the upstream master branch first ensure that you are on your local master branch:

Finally, pull in the changes from upstream to your master and update your remote repository:

To start working on an issue, create a new branch in your local Git repository with the following command:

Start working on your project within your IDE and make any changes you wish.

To push your new branch to your remote GitHub repository:

Please note that this will only push the branch as it stands - you will have to add your files and recommit after any changes you make!

To debug Payara the first step is to build it, to give you something to debug and hopefully catch any glaring issues. A guide to building Payara Server from source can be found in our build instructions page. Once you have built Payara Server, the full distribution will be available as a .zip file within your local repository under the path:

And the exploded version is a directory below in stage:

In order to debug Payara, first build the server with your changes. Run it in debug mode by using the following command:

From within your IDE you can then attach a debugger to the default port of 9009.

When you are finished working on your issue, add the files to your Git with a comment describing the addressed issue and the GitHub issue number if there is one:

Before you merge the branch, ensure that you have updated your master to match the upstream payara. This can be accomplished by using the following:

First, switch to the master branch:

Then pull the changes from upstream onto your local master

Finally, rebase then push the changes from your branch to a new branch on your remote GitHub repository (origin):

Once you have it within your remote GitHub repository, you are then able to request that your code be merged into Payara via a pull request on GitHub.

A large portion of our work is prompted by the actions of the community. If you have an issue which you have found with Payara, or a feature which you would like to be implemented we welcome the raising of GitHub issues. Please fill in the template when creating a new issue, so that we can evaluate the problem as efficiently as possible.