Programmatically Start OSGi (Equinox)?

Question

I'd like to be able to easily start an OSGi framework (preferably Equinox) and load up any bundles listed in my pom from a java main.

Is this possible? If so, how?

It seems like the pax tools would do this, but I can't seem to find any documentation indicating such. I know I can start up Equinox like so:

BundleContext context = EclipseStarter.startup( ( new String[] { "-console" } ), null );

But I'd like to do more - like I said: load more bundles in, maybe start some services, etc.

Answer 1

Any OSGi framework (R4.1 or later) can be started programmatically using the FrameworkFactory API:

ServiceLoader<FrameworkFactory> ffs = ServiceLoader.load(FrameworkFactory.class);
FrameworkFactory ff = ffs.iterator().next();
Map<String,Object> config = new HashMap<String,Object>();
// add some params to config ...
Framework fwk = ff.newFramework(config);
fwk.start();

The OSGi framework is now running. Since Framework extends Bundle you can call getBundleContext and call all of the normal API methods to manipulate bundles, register services, etc. For example

BundleContext bc = fwk.getBundleContext();
bc.installBundle("file:/path/to/bundle.jar");
bc.registerService(MyService.class.getName(), new MyServiceImpl(), null);
// ...

Finally you should simply wait for the framework to shutdown:

fwk.stop();
fwk.waitForStop(0);

To reiterate, this approach works for any OSGi framework including Equinox and Felix just by putting the framework JAR on the classpath.

Answer 2

This thread might be a bit stale, but anyway...

Pax has excellent support for maven urls, it even has a wrap url handler allowing you to dynamically convert non-osgi jar to nice tidy bundles.

http://wiki.ops4j.org/display/paxurl/Mvn+Protocol

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.ops4j.pax.url</groupId>
        <artifactId>pax-url-wrap</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.5</version>        
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.ops4j.pax.url</groupId>
        <artifactId>pax-url-mvn</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.5</version>        
    </dependency>

The command would then be:

install -s mvn:groupId:artifactId:version:classifier

Note: chicken-egg scenario - you have to install these using a file: url handler first or put them into an autodeploy directory.

Karaf has this all build in to it's distro, so maybe have a look at Karaf launcher source?

2nd note: deploying snapshots are enable by appending @snapshots to the repo URL, configuration is managed via ConfigAdmin

In terms of managing all your POM defined dependencies have a look at Karaf features - there's a plugin that would enable to generate a features XML file which can then be used to deploy your entire app: http://karaf.apache.org/manual/2.1.99-SNAPSHOT/developers-guide/features-maven-plugin.html

Further more this XML artifact can be deployed to your OBR, so you can take a vanilla Felix/Equinox/Karaf setup, add the mvn url handler and configure with your company's mvn repo then provision the entire app =)

Answer 3

Edit: Realized you wanted to start from inside java. Shame on me for not reading close enough

Check out this link. http://www.eclipsezone.com/eclipse/forums/t93976.rhtml

Essentially

public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
  String[] equinoxArgs = {"-console","1234","-noExit"};
  BundleContext context = EclipseStarter.startup(equinoxArgs,null);
  Bundle bundle = context.installBundle(
    "http://www.eclipsezone.com/files/jsig/bundles/HelloWorld.jar");
  bundle.start();
}

Edit: Maven

It seems that https://groups.google.com/group/spring-osgi/web/maven-url-handler?pli=1 contains an OSGi URl Handlers Service that can take URLS of the following format and load bundles from them ( mvn://repo/bundle_path )