Chapter 3. OSGi Terms

OSGi is set of open specifications aimed at making it easier to build and deploy complex software applications. The key piece of OSGi technology is the OSGi Framework. It defines standardized mechanism for packaging and managing application bundles. It can dynamically resolve dependencies between bundles and can handle having multiple versions of a bundle deployed simultaneously.

The OSGi specifications are maintained by the OSGi Alliance. See http://www.osgi.org.

An open source project that provides the OSGi runtime container used by Red Hat JBoss A-MQ.

See http://karaf.apache.org

The primary deployment format used in Red Hat JBoss A-MQ. They are either ZIP or JAR files that contain resources and classes for providing a set of functionality to other bundles or to the end user. Bundles differ from standard JAR files in that they must contain metadata describing the bundle and its dependencies.

See also: Fuse Application Bundle

A dependency injection framework designed for use in an OSGi container. It is governed by the Blueprint Container Specification in the OSGi Service Platform Release 4 Version 4.2 Enterprise Specification.

See also: dependency injection

A container that is created by a container on the same host. Child containers are run on the same host as their parent container, but each child runs in a separate JVM.

When created using the console's admin:create-container, a child container inherits the features, feature repositories, and configuration from its parent. When a child container is created using the fabric:container-create command, the fabric:contaier-create-child, command, or the management console, it does not inherit any configuration from its parent.

Regardless of how they are created, child containers can be started and shutdown from their parent container's console without using SSH.

A unit of OSGi deployment that enables you to deploy multiple bundles in a single step.

An XML file that defines one or more features.

A URL that points to a feature repository file.

A registration property used by the OSGi Configuration Admin Service to identify a group of configuration attributes.