Pre-programmed feature installs at apache karaf launch

Question

I am working on an opendaylight project that uses apache karaf. At the start of the program, I need karaf to have some features installed. Currently (and this works) I manually type this into the shell and the features get installed:

$ bin/karaf
Apache Karaf starting up. Press Enter to open the shell now...
100% [========================================================================]
Karaf started in 9s. Bundle stats: 409 active, 410 total

    ________                       ________                .__  .__       .__     __
    \_____  \ ______   ____   ____ \______ \ _____  ___.__.|  | |__| ____ |  |___/  |_
     /   |   \\____ \_/ __ \ /    \ |    |  \\__  \<   |  ||  | |  |/ ___\|  |  \   __\
    /    |    \  |_> >  ___/|   |  \|    `   \/ __ \\___  ||  |_|  / /_/  >   Y  \  |
    \_______  /   __/ \___  >___|  /_______  (____  / ____||____/__\___  /|___|  /__|
            \/|__|        \/     \/        \/     \/\/            /_____/      \/


Hit '<tab>' for a list of available commands
and '[cmd] --help' for help on a specific command.
Hit '<ctrl-d>' or type 'system:shutdown' or 'logout' to shutdown OpenDaylight.

opendaylight-user@root>feature:install odl-restconf odl-mdsal-apidocs odl-openflowplugin-flow-services-rest odl-openflowplugin-app-table-miss-enforcer odl-openflowplugin-nxm-extensions odl-restconf-all odl-openflowplugin-flow-services
opendaylight-user@root>

All this works. However, what I need is for this feature install to occur at the start automatically. I am aware there is a shell.init.script file and I have attempted to add this line to the botton of it:

feature:install odl-restconf odl-mdsal-apidocs odl-openflowplugin-flow-services-rest odl-openflowplugin-app-table-miss-enforcer odl-openflowplugin-nxm-extensions odl-restconf-all odl-openflowplugin-flow-services

But when I do this, I get the following error:

/opt/opendaylight-0.11.0/etc/shell.init.script: Command not found: feature:install

I am also aware that adding a featuresBoot element to org.apache.karaf.features.cfg

featuresBoot = odl-restconf (I shortened it to just one feature for ease of testing)

And I get this error:

org.apache.felix.resolver.reason.ReasonException: Unable to resolve root: missing requirement [root] osgi.identity; osgi.identity=odl-restconf; type=karaf.feature; version="[1.10.0,1.10.0]"; filter:="(&(osgi.identity=odl-restconf)(type=karaf.feature)(version>=1.10.0)(version<=1.10.0))" [caused by: Unable to resolve odl-restconf/1.10.0: missing requirement [odl-restconf/1.10.0] osgi.identity; osgi.identity=odl-restconf-nb-rfc8040; type=karaf.feature; version="[1.10.0,1.10.0]" [caused by: Unable to resolve odl-restconf-nb-rfc8040/1.10.0: missing requirement [odl-restconf-nb-rfc8040/1.10.0] osgi.identity; osgi.identity=odl-restconf-common; type=karaf.feature; version="[1.10.0,1.10.0]" [caused by: Unable to resolve odl-restconf-common/1.10.0: missing requirement [odl-restconf-common/1.10.0] osgi.identity; osgi.identity=odl-mdsal-broker; type=karaf.feature; version="[1.10.0,1.10.0]" [caused by: Unable to resolve odl-mdsal-broker/1.10.0: missing requirement [odl-mdsal-broker/1.10.0] osgi.identity; osgi.identity=org.opendaylight.controller.sal-binding-broker-impl; type=osgi.bundle; version="[1.10.0,1.10.0]"; resolution:=mandatory [caused by: Unable to resolve org.opendaylight.controller.sal-binding-broker-impl/1.10.0: missing requirement [org.opendaylight.controller.sal-binding-broker-impl/1.10.0] osgi.wiring.package; filter:="(&(osgi.wiring.package=org.osgi.service.blueprint)(version>=1.0.0)(!(version>=2.0.0)))"]]]]]

So, I can tell that karaf is at least acknowledging the shell.init.script and org.apache.karaf.features.cfg, however I am clearly using the wrong syntax. I have exhausted my googling in finding the right syntax or finding examples of this. In fact, when I do google for this issue, I get advice along the lines of "use the shell.init.script" file, without an example or a link to documentation for how to use it.

For example, here is a similar question script to run commands at start of apache karaf but the answers really aren't full or complete. I don't know where to put the suggested commands, etc.

Anyway, I hope someone here can show me what specific command one uses in either shell.init.script or org.apache.karaf.features.cfg to accomplish this goal. (The goal being the equivalent initialization command to accomplish what I can successfully do manually as noted at the top)

Update: I also tried this type of command:

echo "feature:install odl-restconf odl-mdsal-apidocs odl-openflowplugin-flow-services-rest odl-openflowplugin-app-table-miss-enforcer odl-openflowplugin-nxm-extensions odl-restconf-all odl-openflowplugin-flow-services" | /opt/opendaylight-0.11.0/bin/karaf

Which also didn't work. I don't get any error messages, I just know my restconf isn't working. Funny enough I did see all the features getting piped into the karaf shell, and the shell did seem to freeze up (seemingly like it was processing the command) but no-go after the cursor returned to me.

Thanks to @jamo as his answer lead me to the answer. I needed to only add this to etc/org.apache.karaf.features.cfg:

featuresBoot = odl-restconf,odl-mdsal-apidocs,odl-openflowplugin-flow-services-rest,odl-openflowplugin-app-table-miss-enforcer,odl-openflowplugin-nxm-extensions,odl-restconf-all,odl-openflowplugin-flow-services, 25921329-8d07-420b-af13-94948bf1a78d

I believe the trick was having the final 25921329-8d07-420b-af13-94948bf1a78d which is some hex value that is in the default cfg file and I ensure it stayed in there.

Answer 1

we use the org.apache.karaf.features.cfg file exclusively in upstream ODL system test. you can see it inside this log, but specifically, here is what it looks like for one of our yangtools jobs:

################################################################################
#
#    Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
#    contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
#    this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
#    The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
#    (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
#    the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
#    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
#    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
#    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
#    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
#    limitations under the License.
#
################################################################################

#
# Comma separated list of features repositories to register by default
#
featuresRepositories = mvn:org.opendaylight.integration/features-test/0.12.1-SNAPSHOT/xml/features,mvn:org.apache.karaf.decanter/apache-karaf-decanter/1.2.0/xml/features, file:${karaf.etc}/5edc7e82-415e-4254-9731-f87670633bcb.xml

#
# Comma separated list of features to install at startup
#
featuresBoot = odl-infrautils-ready,odl-restconf, a3fb0299-0563-4506-b1a0-059253ab43b4

#
# Resource repositories (OBR) that the features resolver can use
# to resolve requirements/capabilities
#
# The format of the resourceRepositories is 
# resourceRepositories=[xml:url|json:url],...
# for Instance:
#
#resourceRepositories=xml:http://host/path/to/index.xml
# or
#resourceRepositories=json:http://host/path/to/index.json
#

#
# Defines if the boot features are started in asynchronous mode (in a dedicated thread)
#
featuresBootAsynchronous=false

#
# Service requirements enforcement
#
# By default, the feature resolver checks the service requirements/capabilities of
# bundles for new features (xml schema >= 1.3.0) in order to automatically installs
# the required bundles.
# The following flag can have those values:
#   - disable: service requirements are completely ignored
#   - default: service requirements are ignored for old features
#   - enforce: service requirements are always verified
#
#serviceRequirements=default

#
# Store cfg file for config element in feature
#
#configCfgStore=true

#
# Configuration of features processing mechanism (overrides, blacklisting, modification of features)
# XML file defines instructions related to features processing
# versions.properties may declare properties to resolve placeholders in XML file
# both files are relative to ${karaf.etc}
#
#featureProcessing=org.apache.karaf.features.xml
#featureProcessingVersions=versions.properties

You have a typo in your question with featuresBook, but I am guessing that's just a typo on not your problem. It's very strange that feature:install works, but not featuresBoot.