Chameleon provides very simple but powerful deployment facilities:

• Monitored directories tracking file changes
• Automatic deployment of bundles
• Support of cfg files to ease the interactions with the OSGi configuration admin

Monitored directories

The runtime and application directories can be monitored, reflecting changes immediately in the framework. For example new bundle placed in such folder would be installed and started (if needed), while deleted bundle file would uninstall the bundle.

By default only the application folder is monitored. This is configurable from the conf/chameleon.properties file:

# Enables / disables the monitoring of the runtime and application directories.
chameleon.runtime.monitoring = false
chameleon.application.monitoring = true

The directory changes are retrieve periodically. The polling period is also configured from the conf/chameleon.properties file.

# Configure the monitoring (i.e. polling) period in milliseconds
chameleon.monitoring.period = 2000

Bundle deployment

Of course, Chameleon handles OSGi bundles. All jar files from the runtime and application directories are installed and started (if needed).

When a new bundle is installed, Chameleon tries to resolved unresolved bundles.

In a monitored directory:

• new jar files are installed and started
• updated jar files updates the corresponding bundles
• jar files deletion uninstalls the corresponding bundles

Configuration deployment

Configuration files are plain property files (java.util.Property). The format is very simple:

file ::= ( header | comment ) *
header ::= <header> ( ':' | '=' ) <value> ( '\<nl> <value> ) *
comment ::= '#' <any>

Notice that this model only supports string properties. For example:

# default port
ftp.port = 21

Configuration file names are related to the PID and factory PID. The structure of the file name is as follows:

filename ::= <pid> ( '-' <subname> )? '.cfg'

If the form is .cfg, the file contains the properties for a Managed Service. The is then the PID of the Managed Service. See the Configuration Admin service for details.

When a Managed Service Factory is used, the situation is different. The part then describes the PID of the Managed Service Factory. You can pick any , this bundle will then create an instance for the factory for each unique name. For example:

com.acme.xyz.cfg // configuration for Managed Service
// com.acme.xyz
com.acme.abc-default.cfg // Managed Service Factory,
// creates an instance for com.acme.abc

In a monitored directory:

• new cfg files are pushed to the configuration admin
• updated cfg files updates the corresponding configurations
• cfg files deletion removes the corresponding configurations

Deployment order

Artifacts from the runtime folder are managed before the artifacts from the application folder.

Adding monitored directory at runtime

You can ask Chameleon to monitor new directories at runtime using the org.ow2.chameleon.core.services.Watcher service. By calling the add method you add a new directory to the watched list. However, if the add method has returned true, do not forget to call removeAndStopIfNeeded on it.