Hi David,
I also thought about how to nicely deploy applications created by bndtools.
I think there are two general ways of using karaf
1. Server mode
You deploy several independent deployment units to karaf. This is for
example used by Talend or Redhat to deploy many indepenent integrations
into karaf.
You use features to describe each deployment unit and use the shell or
jmx to deploy them.
For this mode a solution could be to create an obr index for your
application using the bnd-indexer-plugin. We think about adding an
element to the feature.xml to reference such a repository.
The features should then work in a similar way to bndrun files and just
describe the top level bundles and requirements and let the resolver
create the actual list of bundles to install.
We are also thinking about creating obr indexes for each open source
project per release and deploy these to maven central. So you could
create your application in bndtools by just combining existing
obr repository files.
Bndtools could also be adapted to be able to create and validate feature
files. On the other hand we could adapt the karaf feature.xml to look
more like a bndrun file. So for example if you already have an
obr index to back your feature then each bundle requirement in the
featue can be desribed like in bndrun using the symbolic name +
optionally a version range. So this would make creating features a lot
easier.
2. Application mode
In this case karaf typically hosts only one deployment unit. You want to
start and most times also deploy your application together with karaf.
In most cases a karaf custom distribution is created during the
application build.
Here you have two choices to describe your application. The traditional
way is to describe it as one or more features and add these to the boot
features.
As bndtools can not create features but can create nice deployments from
bndrun files we can also use another approach here. We could skip the
whole feature service and describe karaf + your application
as a plain list of bundles using startup.properties. Bndtools could
supply this list and an enhanced karaf maven plugin could create the
whole archive. I think this mode should be realtively easy to support
using bndtools.
It should also be possible to make the nice bndtools debug mode work
with karaf.
Another advantage of the application approach would be that the static
list of bundles is a very stable form of deployment. You can not have
surprises like the feature service refreshing bundles or karaf trying to
load artifacts from the internet.
As these concepts are not yet tested in the field I would be very
interested in your feedback.
Christian
Am 26.11.2015 um 01:36 schrieb David Leangen:
Hi,
If it’s any help, I am also using bndtools in Eclipse/gradle. I am in
a greenfield environment, so it is probably easier for me.
Thanks to the help of the kind people in this community, I was able to
get my release process working. I do this by releasing my bundles from
bndtools, then having Karaf pull in the bundles from that repository.
I actually like this way of passing the baton, as it nicely decouples
my development environment from my deployment environment, using the
standard OBR repository as the intermediary.
My only remaining challenge is, since Karaf is centred around
features, to figure out how to convert my bnd “application” bundle
into a feature. This is the bundle that pulls in all the other
necessary bundles based on direct and transient requirements. Clearly,
the “application” bundle performs the same function as a Karaf
feature, so this would be an interesting avenue to explore.
If possible this week I will experiment with adding a “Karaf Feature”
capability to my application bundle, so that when the repository is
installed, any bundle with this capability will be added to a
corresponding feature, which would also get installed into the system.
If this works as I expect, and if the community is interested, I could
try to submit a pull request.
Getting back to the title, “Bndtools & Karaf : the right way”, I think
that this would be the “right” way to do it. :-)
Cheers,
=David
On Nov 26, 2015, at 4:29 AM, [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
Yes agreed,
I have found that my reasons for leaving the maven-bundle-plugin
were artificial. You do not need a custom package type because you
can map the lifecycle steps yourself. You can still configure it for
a bnd file and even if it imports by default you can manually
configure it to exclude by default and set all your imports. What I
was trying to get across was that there are a lot of great options
out there for how to configure your environment and there is no "the
right way". In my opinion karaf is maven centered where as bnd is
centered on eclipse and its workspaces but they are coming together
nicely. It may take some time to find the tools you like but there
are a lot of really smart people out there that can help you get just
the environment you like.
David Daniel
On 2015-11-25 14:20, Achim Nierbeck wrote:
Hi,
just for the record with the maven-bundle-plugin you can also use
the bnd file, just configure the pom accordingly.
regards, Achim
2015-11-25 16:51 GMT+01:00 <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>:
I think different people handle things in different ways. Most
people who work on karaf seem to use the maven bundle plugin
with pax-exam for testing. The maven-bundle-plugin uses bnd
tools underneath and just moves the configuration into your pom
file instead of .bnd or .bndrun file. What I have been moving
to as a very beginner in karaf is the bnd-maven-plugin and
bnd-indexer-plugin. These allow for tighter integration with
bnd tools but are really alpha in bnd tool 3.1 You have to get
the builds from bnd tools ci and they don't have support for bnd
tools running and packaging. I also find myself taking all the
features that I use from karaf and coping the information in
there to bnd files so I can run test and package from bnd tools
which is a lot of duplication of work. Bnd Tools is working on
adding better maven support but they are really built up around
eclipse and gradle at this time. I think you will have to find
what works for you and what features you like.
David Daniel
On 2015-11-25 09:41, deadbrain wrote:
Hi all Karaf gurus,
just a little question dealing with BndTools, I am supposed to refactor
an existing Spring DM application into an OSGi + Blueprint application
to be deployed inside ServiceMix (3.4 or 4). As a consequence I would
like to use Bndtools but launching Karaf rather than the defaut Gogo
shell would be more convenient.
What is the best way to do that ?
I am supposed to write or reuse an ApplicationFactory ? I found a couple
of implementations in github (ready to use ?)
Is there any other valuable option?
Kind regards
Jerome
--
Apache Member
Apache Karaf <http://karaf.apache.org/> Committer & PMC
OPS4J Pax Web <http://wiki.ops4j.org/display/paxweb/Pax+Web/>
Committer & Project Lead
blog <http://notizblog.nierbeck.de/>
Co-Author of Apache Karaf Cookbook <http://bit.ly/1ps9rkS>
Software Architect / Project Manager / Scrum Master
