DDevelopment & Design

Karaf configuration as Groovy file

IntroductionBy deafault, Apache Karaf keeps configuration for bundles in the etc directory as flat properties files. We can override configuration for the storing mechanism by providing own implementation of the org.apache.felix.cm.PersistenceManager i…

Introduction

By deafault, Apache Karaf keeps configuration for bundles in the etc directory as flat properties files. We can override configuration for the storing mechanism by providing own implementation of the org.apache.felix.cm.PersistenceManager interface and use much more readable format for bundle properties, e. g. groovy config.

Turning off built-in Karaf persistence

As we can read in Karaf documentation:

Apache Karaf persists configuration using own persistence manager in case of when available persistence managers do not support that.

We will use our custom implementation of persistence, so Karaf persistence is not needed. We can turn it off by setting variable storage to an empty value:

$ cat etc/org.apache.karaf.config.cfg
storage=

This option is available since version 4.1.3 when this issue was resolved.

Registering custom Persistence Manager

First we have to create and register an OSGi service implementing org.apache.felix.cm.PersistenceManager. If we build and install the bundle with such service while Karaf is running (e.g. by putting jar in the deploy directory), then we should have at least two PersistenceManager services registered:

karaf@root()> ls org.apache.felix.cm.PersistenceManager
[org.apache.felix.cm.PersistenceManager]
----------------------------------------
 service.bundleid = 7
 service.description = Platform Filesystem Persistence Manager
 service.id = 14
 service.pid = org.apache.felix.cm.file.FilePersistenceManager
 service.ranking = -2147483648
 service.scope = singleton
 service.vendor = Apache Software Foundation
Provided by :
 Apache Felix Configuration Admin Service (7)
Used by:
 Apache Felix Configuration Admin Service (7)

[org.apache.felix.cm.PersistenceManager]
----------------------------------------
 osgi.service.blueprint.compname = groovyConfigPersistenceManager
 service.bundleid = 56
 service.id = 117
 service.pid = com.github.alien11689.osgi.util.groovyconfig.impl.GroovyConfigPersistenceManager
 service.ranking = 100
 service.scope = bundle
Provided by :
 groovy-config (56)
Used by:
 Apache Felix Configuration Admin Service (7)

Loaded configurations will be cached by configuration admin. We can use org.apache.felix.cm.NotCachablePersistenceManager interface if we want to implement custom caching strategy.

Creating a new properties file

Let’s create a new properties file in groovy, e.g:

$ cat etc/com.github.alien11689.test1.groovy
a = '7'
b {
    c {
        d = 1
        e = 2
    }
    z = 9
}
x.y.z='test'

If we search for properties with pid com.github.alien11689.test1, Karaf will find these.

karaf@root()> config:list '(service.pid=com.github.alien11689.test1)'
----------------------------------------------------------------
Pid:            com.github.alien11689.test1
BundleLocation: null
Properties:
   a = 7
   b.c.d = 1
   b.c.e = 2
   b.z = 9
   service.pid = com.github.alien11689.test1
   x.y.z = test

If we make any change to the file they won’t be mapped to properties, because there are no file watchers defined for it.

We could manage such properties using Karaf commands instead.

Managing configuration via Karaf commands

We can define a new pid using Karaf commands:

karaf@root()> config:property-set -p com.github.alien11689.test2 f.a 6
karaf@root()> config:property-set -p com.github.alien11689.test2 f.b 'test'

Since our PersistenceManager has higher service.ranking (100 > -2147483648), new pid will be stored as a groovy file:

$ cat etc/com.github.alien11689.test2.groovy
f {
    b='test'
    a='6'
}

We can also change/remove properties or remove the whole configuration pid using karaf commands and it will all be mapped to groovy configuration files.

Sources

Sources are available on github.

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DDevelopment & Design

Phonegap / Cordova and cross domain ssl request problem on android.

In one app I have participated, there was a use case:
  • User fill up a form.
  • User submit the form.
  • System send data via https to server and show a response.
During development there wasn’t any problem, but when we were going to release production version then some unsuspected situation occurred. I prepare the production version accordingly with standard flow for Android environment:
  • ant release
  • align
  • signing
During conduct tests on that version, every time I try to submit the form, a connection error appear. In that situation, at the first you should check whitelist in cordova settings. Every URL you want to connect to, must be explicit type in: 
res/xml/cordova.xml
If whitelist looks fine, the error is most likely caused by inner implementation of Android System. The Android WebView does not allow by default self-signed SSL certs. When app is debug-signed the SSL error is ignored, but if app is release-signed connection to untrusted services is blocked.



Workaround


You have to remember that secure connection to service with self-signed certificate is risky and unrecommended. But if you know what you are doing there is some workaround of the security problem. Behavior of method 
CordovaWebViewClient.onReceivedSslError
must be changed.


Thus add new class extended CordovaWebViewClient and override ‘onReceivedSslError’. I strongly suggest to implement custom onReceiveSslError as secure as possible. I know that the problem occours when app try connect to example.domain.com and in spite of self signed certificate the domain is trusted, so only for that case the SslError is ignored. 

public class MyWebViewClient extends CordovaWebViewClient {

   private static final String TAG = MyWebViewClient.class.getName();
   private static final String AVAILABLE_SLL_CN 
                               = "example.domain.com";

   public MyWebViewClient(DroidGap ctx) {
       super(ctx);
   }

   @Override
   public void onReceivedSslError(WebView view, 
                                  SslErrorHandler handler, 
                                  android.net.http.SslError error) {

       String errorSourceCName = error.getCertificate().
                                  getIssuedTo().getCName();

       if( AVAILABLE_SLL_CN.equals(errorSourceCName) ) {
           Log.i(TAG, "Detect ssl connection error: " + 
                       error.toString() + 
                       „ so the error is ignored”);

           handler.proceed();
           return;
       }

       super.onReceivedSslError(view, handler, error);
   }
}
Next step is forcing yours app to  use custom implementation of WebViewClient. 

public class Start extends DroidGap
{
   private static final String TAG = Start.class.getName();

   @Override
   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
   {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       super.setIntegerProperty("splashscreen", R.drawable.splash);
       super.init();

       MyWebViewClient myWebViewClient = new MyWebViewClient(this);
       myWebViewClient.setWebView(this.appView);

       this.appView.setWebViewClient(myWebViewClient);
       
       // yours code

   }
}
That is all ypu have to do if minSdk of yours app is greater or equals 8. In older version of Android there is no class 
android.net.http.SslError
So in class MyCordovaWebViewClient class there are errors because compliator doesn’t see SslError class. Fortunately Android is(was) open source, so it is easy to find source of the class. There is no inpediments to ‘upgrade’ app and just add the file to project. I suggest to keep original packages. Thus after all operations the source tree looks like:

Class SslError placed in source tree. 
 Now the app created in release mode can connect via https to services with self-signed SSl certificates.