RESTEasy fails to build native image on latest 17 build of GraalVM Community and GraalVM

[Christopher-Chianelli]

Describe the bug

In our build matrix, we use the setup-graalvm action to get the latest GraalVM corresponding to the matrix's Java version:

  - uses: graalvm/setup-graalvm@v1
    with:
      java-version: ${{matrix.java-version}}
      distribution: 'graalvm-community'
      components: 'native-image'
      github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
      cache: 'maven'

For Java 17, this fetches java 17.0.9-graalce (which can be installed with SDKMan: sdk install java 17.0.9-graalce)

RESTEasy uses Netty, which causes a build time error:

Error: Classes that should be initialized at run time got initialized during image building:
 io.netty.buffer.UnpooledUnsafeDirectByteBuf the class was requested to be initialized at run time (subtype of io.netty.buffer.AbstractReferenceCountedByteBuf). To see why io.netty.buffer.UnpooledUnsafeDirectByteBuf got initialized use --trace-class-initialization=io.netty.buffer.UnpooledUnsafeDirectByteBuf

The issue does not reproduce using latest Java 17 version of Mandrel (23.0.6.r17-mandrel).

Expected behavior

The REST sample project generated by code.quarkus.io native image builds successfully on the latest version of GraalVM for Java 17.

Actual behavior

This error appears during the native image build:

Error: Classes that should be initialized at run time got initialized during image building:
 io.netty.buffer.UnpooledUnsafeDirectByteBuf the class was requested to be initialized at run time (subtype of io.netty.buffer.AbstractReferenceCountedByteBuf). To see why io.netty.buffer.UnpooledUnsafeDirectByteBuf got initialized use --trace-class-initialization=io.netty.buffer.UnpooledUnsafeDirectByteBuf

How to Reproduce?

Reproducer: https://github.com/Christopher-Chianelli/issue-reproducer/tree/quarkus-native-17-failed-build
(App was generated from code.quarkus.io)

Output of uname -a or ver

Linux 6.11.10-300.fc41.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Nov 23 00:51:20 UTC 2024 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Output of java -version

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment Oracle GraalVM 17.0.12+8.1 (build 17.0.12+8-LTS-jvmci-23.0-b41)

Mandrel or GraalVM version (if different from Java)

No response

Quarkus version or git rev

3.17.2

Build tool (ie. output of mvnw --version or gradlew --version)

3.9.9

Additional information

No response

[quarkus-bot]

/cc @Karm (mandrel), @galderz (mandrel), @zakkak (mandrel,native-image)

[gsmet]

Yeah, we had all sorts of weird issues with the Java 17 version of GraalVM. Even if you app is using Java 17, we recommend to use the Java 21 one.

We need to find a place to document it properly.

[zakkak]

We need to find a place to document it properly.

Not exactly documented but Quarkus throws a warning like this:

[WARNING] [io.quarkus.deployment.pkg.steps.NativeImageBuildStep] You are using an older version of GraalVM or Mandrel : 23.0.5.0. Quarkus currently supports 23.1.0. Please upgrade to this version.

which admittedly also comes with some issues: a) uses the internal versioning instead of the JDK version so people might get confused, b) suggests upgrading to 23.1.0 which is not the latest 23.1 release.