Executable War Main

build.gradle

// Relevant Gradle snippets
apply plugin: 'war'

configurations {
	executableWarDeps
}

dependencies {
        // your stuff
	executableWarDeps 'org.mortbay.jetty:jetty:6.1.4'
	executableWarDeps 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:1.8.6'
}

war {
	from {configurations.executableWarDeps.collect {
			it.isDirectory() ? it : project.zipTree(it)
		}
	}
	from "$buildDir/classes/main"
	manifest { attributes 'Main-Class': 'mypackage.ExecutableMain' }

}

Main.groovy

package mypackage;

import java.net.URL;
import java.security.ProtectionDomain

import org.mortbay.jetty.Connector;
import org.mortbay.jetty.Server;
import org.mortbay.jetty.nio.SelectChannelConnector;
import org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext;


/**
 * Simple executable main, with just a dash of Groovy
 *
 */
class ExecutableMain {

	static main(args) {
		Server server = new Server();
		
		Connector connector = new SelectChannelConnector();
		connector.setPort(8888);
		connector.setHost("127.0.0.1");
		server.addConnector(connector);
		server.setStopAtShutdown(true);
		WebAppContext context = new WebAppContext();
		context.setServer(server);
		context.setContextPath("/");
	 
		ProtectionDomain protectionDomain = DataImporterMain.class.getProtectionDomain();
		URL location = protectionDomain.getCodeSource().getLocation();
		context.setWar(location.toExternalForm());
		println "WAR URL: ${location.toExternalForm()}"
		server.addHandler(context);
		
		try {
		  server.start();
		  System.in.read();
		  server.stop();
		  server.join();
		} catch (Exception e) {
		  e.printStackTrace();
		  System.exit(100);
		}
	}

}