Provision bundles from a text file

Owned by Alin Dreghiciu
Last updated: Jan 10, 2013 by NiclasHVersion comment
2 min read

Under construction

Provision bundle specified in text file

Provision file format

Files containing bundles to be installed must be plain text files containing url's of the bundles to be installed on separate line, one bundle per line and/or system properties. If system properties are present, those will be carried into the OSGi platform.
The syntax of an bundle reference is as follow:

bundle_url[@start_level][@nostart][@update]

where:

  • bundle_url : mandatory; is the url of the bundle to be installed. It can be any valid url (see also Pax Runner Handler for custom url handlers);
  • start_level : optional; an integer representing the start level of the bundle. If present and OSGi Start Level Service is available then the bundle is installed with that specific start level;
  • nostart : optional; this should be the hardcoded string "nostart" (not case sensitive); if present the bundle will not be started. Default, if the value is not present the bundle will be started depending on the service configuration.
  • update : optional; this should be the hardcoded string "update" (not case sensitive); if present and the bundle was already installed before, the bundle will be updated. Default, if the value is not present the bundle will be updated or not depending on the service configuration.

The syntax of a property is as follow:

-Dproperty-name=propertyvalue

where

  • property-name : the key of the property
  • property-value : the value of the property. The value can contain place holders as ${name} where name is the name of the property the ${name} placeholder will be replaced with.

The file can contain empty lines or lines starting with #, case when those lines will be skipped. This allows nice separation and comments.

Provision file examples

# and bundle from the local hard drive with no specific start level that is installed and started
file:/C:/localRepository/org/ops4j/pax/web/bundles/service/0.2.0/service-0.2.0.jar

# a maven artifact bundle installed with start level = 5 and started
mvn:org.ops4j.pax.web.bundles/service@5

# an bundle installed from http with no specific start level that is just installed and not started
http://repository.ops4j.org/maven2/org/ops4j/pax/web/bundles/service/0.2.0/service-0.2.0.jar@nostart

# a maven artifact bundle that will be updated if installed before and started
mvn:org.ops4j.pax.web.bundles/service@update

# properties for http service ports
-Dorg.osgi.service.http.port=2080
-Dorg.osgi.service.http.port.secure=2443

Note that, as stated by the maven handler, if you use an mvn: url, you could use in your url the repository from where the bundle could be downloaded.

(warning) TODO: document also placeholder usage