Equinox

Equinox is considered to be a reference implementation of the OSGi Core Release 7. It is an open source project, part of the Eclipse project. It provides a set of bundles, that implement various optional OSGi services.

The openHAB bundles are deployed on an Equinox runtime. Knowledge about how to start the runtime and execute basic commands will help you to speedup the development process.

• Start Equinox Runtime from Eclipse
• Run Equinox from the command line
• Commands
• Equinox Bundles
• Further Reading

Start Equinox Runtime from Eclipse

1. Go to "Run" -> "Run Configurations".

2. From the list in the left panel choose "OSGi Framework". Right click on it and choose "New".

3. After you've been created a new configuration, select the bundles that you need from the workspace.

4. Then make sure that the following bundles from the target platform are selected, otherwise the OSGi console will not be available:

   org.apache.felix.gogo.runtime org.apache.felix.gogo.shell org.apache.felix.gogo.command org.eclipse.equinox.console

5. Click on "Add Required Bundles". Eclipse will resolve all dependencies of the bundles listed above and include new bundles to the configuration.

6. Click on "Validate Bundles" and make sure that "No problems were detected" is displayed.

7. You can start Equinox with the "Run" button.

Run Equinox from the command line

The org.eclipse.osgi bundle is the framework implementation of the Core Framework specification in a standalone package.

If you have compiled openHAB once either via command line (mvn install) or the Eclipse IDE, maven will have downloaded Equinox for you already. Find it in your maven cache directory (linux ~/.m2/repository/org/eclipse/platform/org.eclipse.osgi/3.15.0/org.eclipse.osgi-3.15.0.jar and windows C:\Users\your.name\.m2\..).

1. Create configuration folder in that directory.
2. Inside the configuration folder create a file config.ini.
3. Save the following content in the config.ini file:

    osgi.bundles=\
    org.eclipse.core.runtime,\
    org.eclipse.equinox.common,\
    org.eclipse.core.jobs,\
    org.eclipse.equinox.registry,\
    org.eclipse.equinox.preferences,\
    org.eclipse.core.contenttype,\
    org.eclipse.equinox.app,\
    org.eclipse.equinox.console,\
    org.apache.felix.gogo.runtime,\
    org.apache.felix.gogo.shell,\
    org.apache.felix.gogo.command

    eclipse.ignoreApp=true
    eclipse.consoleLog=true

1. Use the following command line to run Equinox:

java -jar org.eclipse.osgi-3.x.x.jar -console -configuration configuration

Commands

Once you have Equinox running, you will see a prompt. Some of the basic OSGi commands are:

Command	Description
help	Basic command that will list all available commands
install [bundle URL]	Installs the bundle from the given URL
start [bundle # or bundle name]	Starts the bundle with the given numeric or symbolic id
stop [bundle # or bundle name]	Stops the bundle with the given numeric or symbolic id
ss	Reports a summary status of all installed bundles
diag [bundle # or bundle name]	Reports any resolution problems for the bundle with the given numeric or symbolic id
services [filter]	Lists all available services or only services matching to LDAP-style filter (e.g. services (objectClass="*virtage*") - will print only services having virtage in their class name)

Table 1. Equinox commands (Source: https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/documents/quickstart-framework.php)

Equinox Bundles

Another part of the Equinox project is Equinox Bundles. It consists of bundles that implement all add-on services from the OSGi specification and additional services defined in various OSGi expert groups.

Some of the core bundles are listed in the table below. Some or all of these bundles must be included in your runtime configuration, if you want to use the services that they provide.

Name	Bundle Symbolic Name	Description
Declarative Services	org.eclipse.equinox.ds	An implementation of the OSGi Declarative Services specification
Event Admin Service	org.eclipse.equinox.event	OSGi Compendium Release 7 Event Admin Service provides an inter-bundle communication mechanism based on an event publish and subscribe model
Equinox Utilities	org.eclipse.equinox.util	A library of utility classes that are frequently used from the Equinox OSGi Service implementation bundles
OSGi Services API	org.eclipse.osgi.service	This bundle contains the set of OSGi specified service APIs

Table 2. OSGi Bundles (Full list can be found at: https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/bundles/)

Further Reading

• https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/
• https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/bundles/
• https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/documents/quickstart-framework.php
• https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/framework/
• https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/incubator/
• OSGiEquinoxExplained
• http://blog.idzona.com/2016/01/different-ways-to-start-the-eclipse-equinox-osgi-console.html
• https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=371101
• https://www.eclipse.org/equinox/p2/
• https://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_P2_Resolution
• https://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox/p2/FAQ
• https://wiki.eclipse.org/Installable_Units
• Products and features
• Dependency Management for the Eclipse Ecosystem, Eclipse p2, metadata and resolution, Daniel Le Berre, Pascal Rapicault,2009
• RT meets p2

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