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.
