Chapter 10. Developing an application for the Karaf image

To create a Karaf project using a Maven archetype, follow these steps.

The directory structure of a Camel Karaf application is as follows:

  ├── pom.xml 1
  ├── README.md
  ├── configuration
  │   └── settings.xml
  └── src
      ├── main
      │   ├── fabric8
      │   │   └── deployment.yml 2
      │   ├── java
      │   │   └── org
      │   │       └── example
      │   │           └── fis
      │   └── resources
      │       ├── assembly
      │       │   └── etc
      │       │       └── org.ops4j.pax.logging.cfg 3
      │       └── OSGI-INF
      │           └── blueprint
      │               └── camel-log.xml 4
      └── test
          └── java
              └── org
                  └── example
                      └── fis

Where the following files are important for developing a Karaf application:

The Karaf archetype catalog includes the following examples.

Fabric8 provides support for Apache Karaf making it easier to develop OSGi apps for Kubernetes.

The important features of Fabric8 are as listed below:

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.fabric8</groupId>
  <artifactId>fabric8-karaf-features</artifactId>
  <version>${fabric8.version}</version>
  <classifier>features</classifier>
  <type>xml</type>
</dependency>

public interface PlaceholderResolver {
    /**
     * Resolve a placeholder using the strategy indicated by the prefix
     *
     * @param value the placeholder to resolve
     * @return the resolved value or null if not resolved
     */
    String resolve(String value);

    /**
     * Replaces all the occurrences of variables with their matching values from the resolver using the given source string as a template.
     *
     * @param source the string to replace in
     * @return the result of the replace operation
     */
    String replace(String value);

    /**
     * Replaces all the occurrences of variables within the given source builder with their matching values from the resolver.
     *
     * @param value the builder to replace in
     * @rerurn true if altered
     */
    boolean replaceIn(StringBuilder value);

    /**
     * Replaces all the occurrences of variables within the given dictionary
     *
     * @param dictionary the dictionary to replace in
     * @rerurn true if altered
     */
    boolean replaceAll(Dictionary<String, Object> dictionary);

    /**
     * Replaces all the occurrences of variables within the given dictionary
     *
     * @param dictionary the dictionary to replace in
     * @rerurn true if altered
     */
    boolean replaceAll(Map<String, Object> dictionary);
}

The fabric8-karaf-blueprint uses Aries PropertyEvaluator and property placeholders resolvers from fabric8-karaf-core to resolve placeholders in your Blueprint XML file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<blueprint xmlns="http://www.osgi.org/xmlns/blueprint/v1.0.0"
           xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xmlns:ext="http://aries.apache.org/blueprint/xmlns/blueprint-ext/v1.2.0"
           xsi:schemaLocation="
             http://www.osgi.org/xmlns/blueprint/v1.0.0
             https://www.osgi.org/xmlns/blueprint/v1.0.0/blueprint.xsd
             http://camel.apache.org/schema/blueprint
             http://camel.apache.org/schema/blueprint/camel-blueprint.xsd
             http://aries.apache.org/blueprint/xmlns/blueprint-ext/v1.3.0
             http://aries.apache.org/schemas/blueprint-ext/blueprint-ext-1.3.xsd">

  <ext:property-placeholder evaluator="fabric8" placeholder-prefix="$[" placeholder-suffix="]"/>

  <bean id="activemq" class="org.apache.activemq.camel.component.ActiveMQComponent">
     <property name="userName"  value="$[k8s:secret:$[env:ACTIVEMQ_SERVICE_NAME]/username]"/>
     <property name="password"  value="$[k8s:secret:$[env:ACTIVEMQ_SERVICE_NAME]/password]"/>
     <property name="brokerURL" value="tcp://$[env+service:ACTIVEMQ_SERVICE_NAME]"/>
  </bean>
</blueprint>

It is recommended to install the fabric8-karaf-checks as a startup feature. Once enable, your Karaf server can expose http://0.0.0.0:8181/readiness-check and http://0.0.0.0:8181/health-check URLs which can be used by Kubernetes for readiness and liveness probes.

You can provide additional custom heath checks to prevent the Karaf server from receiving user traffic before it is ready to process the requests. To enable custom health checks you need to implement the io.fabric8.karaf.checks.HealthChecker or io.fabric8.karaf.checks.ReadinessChecker interfaces and register those objects in the OSGi registry.

import io.fabric8.karaf.checks.*;
import org.apache.felix.scr.annotations.*;
import org.apache.commons.io.FileSystemUtils;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;

@Component(
    name = "example.DiskChecker",
    immediate = true,
    enabled = true,
    policy = ConfigurationPolicy.IGNORE,
    createPid = false
)
@Service({HealthChecker.class, ReadinessChecker.class})
public class DiskChecker implements HealthChecker, ReadinessChecker {

    public List<Check> getFailingReadinessChecks() {
        // lets just use the same checks for both readiness and health
        return getFailingHeathChecks();
    }

    public List<Check> getFailingHealthChecks() {
        long free = FileSystemUtils.freeSpaceKb("/");
        if (free < 1024 * 500) {
            return Collections.singletonList(new Check("disk-space-low", "Only " + free + "kb of disk space left."));
        }
        return Collections.emptyList();
    }
}