#Reference field injected osgi services randomly coming up "null" - osgi

We have a decent sized osgi application which consist of approximately 80 custom service bundles with an additional 20 to 30 3rd party bundle dependencies at runtime (we are running R7 flavor of osgi). When we started this project we would typically use field injection of our services with the #Reference annotation and had no issues at all, but now, we are seeing more and more that these injected dependencies are sometimes randomly coming up as null - one way we have found to fix the issue is to replace the field injection with method injection of the services.
What I have noticed is, that where the injected services are typically coming up null is in our component services, which are effectively just Java classes with the #Component annotation slapped on, but which do not implement a "ProviderType" or "ConsumerType" interface (our REST endpoints are like this). We are already currently setting these component's property of "immediate=true" but this doesn't seem to have any effect on the injected services randomly coming up null.
When we check the list of bundles - all the correct bundles appear to be Active and sometimes even the services appear to be fine (NO Unsatisfied References) which is totally mind boggling.
Anyone who may have some insight on why this would be occurring?
Some ongoing abnormalities / possible causes:
Since the beginning of the project we have seen the following error with almost all of our REST endpoints but don't know exactly why the framework thinks its seeing duplicate classes and methods.
Both
fully.qualified.class.path.CustomServiceRest#doStuff and fully.qualified.class.path.CustomeServiceRest#doStuff are equal candidates for handling the current request which can lead to unpredictable results
Dec 13, 2018 2:41:45 PM org.apache.cxf.jaxrs.model.OperationResourceInfoComparator compare
WARNING: Both fully.qualified.class.path.CustomServiceRest#doSomeOtherStuff and fully.qualified.class.path.CustomServiceRest#doSomeOtherStuff are equal candidates for handling the current request which can lead to unpredictable results
Recently we have added an osgi WebSocket service which required an addition of another Jetty dependency bundle and there has been some concern about having the two Jetty bundles playing nice in the runtime mix.

After much wrestling with this issue, what was found - Each of our RestEndpoint bundles contained a JaxRsApp class which extnends javax.ws.rs.core.Application and we were adding each of our RestEndpoint static classes to the Set> set within the Overridden getClasses() method, however, each of our RestEntpoints classes are annotated with #Component, and each #Component has the service property set to that respective endoints class name, and as such what we believe was happening is that each class was being registered twice (once by the JaxRsApp and once by the SCR with the #Component notation), hence the duplicate warning message whenever we would hit any of the restenpoints with a Postman test or the UI made a rest call.
In addition, by removing the static registrations from the JaxRsApp file (so we are now only registring the restendpoint components with SCR), not only did the warning go away, but also the null service issue cleared up. So we believe that prior to the change, the SCR was in fact injecting the dependency services, but somehow with the "duplicated" service endpoints, the dependency services were being injected into the JaxRsApp registered serice classes? I'm not 100% sure so if someone here can explain it would be greatly apprecitated.
In any case it works now.

Related

Spring Beans Dependency Inyection with different configurations

I have the following doubt, probably a very basic one, that I have already managed to work out but I would like to listen if there is a different approach or actually if I am getting something wrong.
Background
I have an implementation with Springboot with a classic layered approach using Spring StereoTypes and wiring all up using Field DI (yes... I am aware it is not the best approach)
Service -> Repository -> (Something else)
In my case (something else) is a third party Rest API which I am calling using a RestTemplate with a specific configuration.The current solution has many services and repositories to deal with each of the Third Party domain entities. All of them using the same RestTemplate bean. The bean is inyected at the repository level.
Problem
So now I have been told from the Third Party System that depending on which business scenario my local services are executing, repositories need to use one of two different users, therefore, I assume that a different restTemplate config needs to be added. At first glance it drives me to move even higher the decision of which restTemplate to use. At Service level, not at the repo level. So I would need to have, lets say, a service A under a specific context whose dependencies (the repository) will need to have a specific template, and the same service A given another context, with a different dependency config.
Approach
The approach that I took is to have a configuration class where I generate different versions of the same service with different dependencies, in particular, their repositories using a specific template. Github Example
This approach seems like odd to me because up till now I have never had to do something like this ...and leaves me with the doubt if something different can be done to achive the same.
Another approach would be to inject both RestTemplates in the base repository and with an extra parameter to decide which to use in each method that it is being use at service level and repo level. Which I dislike.

No "new" objects for Java Spring and how to convert legacy application to "Spring" concept

I have just started learning Java Spring and the concept of Dependency Injection (DI) and Inversion of Control (IoC).
I learned that all objects whether it is singleton, prototype or request and sessions, are all retrieved from the container.
The container manages the dependencies between classes and the lifecycle/scope of the object.
The fundamental idea behind this is there are no "new" operators for application using Spring Framework as the backbone of the system. (Please correct me if I am wrong).
I wanted to modernize legacy applications coded without the Spring framework and manages the 3rd party libraries classes and injects them using Spring.
How should I approach this?
I learned that all objects whether it is singleton, prototype or request and sessions, are all retrieved from the container.
That is not quite right. Not all objects, but those you have the cotainer told to resolve, are retrieved from the container. In general you use the #Component annotation to mark which of your objects should the container know of. Besides #Component there are other annotations which do in principle the same, but allow a more finegrained semantics, e.g. #Repository annotation, which is at its base #Component and put #Target, #Retention, #Documented on top.
The container manages the dependencies between classes and the lifecycle/scope of the object.
Yes. The container does the wiring up for you, i.e. resolving dependencies annotated with #Ressource, #Autowired or #Inject depending on which annotation you prefer.
During the lifecycle there are possible events, which allow usage of lifecycle callbacks.
Also: You could determine the bean scope.
The fundamental idea behind this is there are no "new" operators for application using Spring Framework as the backbone of the system. (Please correct me if I am wrong).
The fundamental principle is, that you delegate the creation of objects of a certain kind to the container. Separation of creation and consumption of objects allows greater flexibility and in consequence better testability of your application.
Besides the "components" of your application, there are e.g. the typical containers like ArrayList or HashMap, upon which you use the new-operator as before.
I wanted to modernize legacy applications coded without the Spring framework and manages the 3rd party libraries classes and injects them using Spring.
How should I approach this?
From what was said above, it should be "simple":
1) Go through each class file and look for its dependencies
2) Refactor those out and put #Component on top of the class
Special case: 3rd party objects, where you do not have access to the source. Then you have to wrap its construction yourself into a factory e.g. with #Bean.
3) Add the missing dependencies via #Autowired (the spring specific annotation for marking dependencies)
4) Refactor components of the service layer with #Service annotationinstead of #Component.
5) Refactor the data access layer, instead of using #Component, you can use #Repository.
This should give you a base to work with.

Why use #Component annotation with each service in CQ

I am bit confused about following things. I understand #Service and #Component annotations are main annotations when we define a component or a service in OSGi. I am referring to http://felix.apache.org/documentation/subprojects/apache-felix-maven-scr-plugin/scr-annotations.html and What is the difference between OSGi Components and Services
Questions:
A service can not be created without #Component annotation, why is that?
I understand once we define a service its life-cycle is managed by OSGi differently but what are the advantages of doing so?
How do we use class defined as #Component as service can be accessed via sling.getService(ServiceName.class)
A service can be published without a #Component annotation, but you have to do it programmatically. If you use the annotation then you benefit from the automatic metadata generation in the build tool, and also from the Declarative Services runtime framework. This simplifies a lot of things. If you want to do it with low-level code you have to write an implementation of BundleActivator, declare that with the Bundle-Activator manifest header, call context.registerService etc. Bottom line: just use the #Component annotation!
Simple: laziness. When a component is a service then it can be instantiated lazily "on-demand", i.e. only when consumer first tries to use the service. Non-service components, on the other hand, usually do other kinds of things inside themselves, e.g. running a web server or a GUI or a polling thread, whatever. These need to be running all the time, rather than on-demand.
3. I didn't understand this question.
A component that is not published as a service cannot be accessed from outside the bundle. If you want it to be accessible then it has to be a service. In case you think this is useless, consider a component that creates an HTTP server. It opens port 80 and responds to network requests from the outside world. So it does something useful even though it's not a service and not accessible from other bundles. This kind of component is like a bridge between your application and the outside world; whereas services are a bridge between one part of your application and another part.
OSGi is the one where bundles are installed and manages. Everything that needs to be there in OSGi has to be a component be it simple component, a service or servlet. That is why we need to use #Component with service also.
Services are singleton. Everything that needs to be managed for Singleton class and using reference of service is done by OSGi. Nothing has to be done from our side. So everything is automatically managed.
You dont access components like that. Components are independently used. Quoting example from different post:
Suppose you want to a write Server component that sits on socket and responds to requests over TCP/IP. When the component starts, it opens the socket and creates the thread(s) required to serve clients. When it stops, it closes the thread(s) and socket

Per-Request DependencyResolver in Web API

In MVC, a ModelValidatorProvider is instantiated and called to validate a model on each request. This means that in a DI environment, it can take dependencies on objects scoped within a single request, such as a Unit of Work or Database context. In Web API, this appears to have been significantly changed. Instead of being instantiated per-request, the ModelValidatorProvider appears to be long-lived and instantiated within the application startup. The WebAPI then caches the results from the ModelValidatorProvider per-type, meaning that the ModelValidator cannot take any dependencies from DI.
I am trying to implement my ModelValidator to use a factory using a Service Locator (please, no automatic 'anti-pattern' comments!). This would allow me to construct an internal validator object within each request, which would be able to take dependencies from the container. However, I cannot get hold of a Dependency Resolver or container scoped to the current request from within this ModelValidator which is essentially scoped as a Singleton. I've tried to use GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.DependencyResolver, but this only returns globally-scoped services (from the root scope, also mentioned here)
I'm working in Autofac, so an autofac-specific solution would be suitable (e.g. MVC has AutofacDependencyResolver.Current, which internally uses DependencyResolver.GetService). There is no equivalent available in the WebAPI integration, presumably because of the reason mentioned above where the global DependencyResolver only returns globally-scoped services.
The reason I'm trying to do this (as well as for my own use) is to implement the Web API integration for FluentValidation, which currently does not exist. There have been two attempts so far, but neither of these handle the Dependency Injection issue and instead result in a single static ModelValidator.
Things I've tried so far:
Using GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.DependencyResolver (returns objects from the root scope)
Taking a dependency on Func<IComponentContext> (always returns the root context)
In an answer which has since been removed, it was suggested to remove IModelValidatorProvider service from the Web API config. This had to be done using reflection since the interface and the implementing classes are all defined as internal, but it did make the validators work better (because the ModelValidator was constructed per request). However, there is a significant performance hit to doing it this way due to the use of reflection to check for validators on the model and every property it has, so I don't want to take this option.
Filip W's answer suggests using HttpRequestMessage to get the Dependency Scope, but I've not found anything such as HttpRequestMessage.Current which would provide access to this object from within a long-lived object - if that could be achieved I believe everything would fall into place.
To get current dependency scope, you have to use (surprise, surprise :) GetDependencyScope() of the current HttpRequestMessage (more about which you can read up on MSDN) instead of GlobalConfiguration.
I blogged about Web API per-request dependency scope a while ago - that should be helpful.

OSGI service vs. Singleton?

I am a beginner to OSGI and I am wondering if someone can enlighten me about the difference between creating OSGI service vs singleton pattern. For example, suppose I have a bundle core which provides IService, and multiple bundles that needs to access this. I can:
register a service in the core-bundle, in which the plugins can access
provide a singleton class, which provides the service
Using OSGI service seems to be quite cumbersome; and since the plugins have to depend on Core anyways (to get the interface), what's the advantage of using OSGI service?
Services are the connections between independent modules. Having modules depend on services (with their specification packages) can significantly reduce coupling between modules and thus provide much of the benefits of modularity.
I think the singleton pattern is used in two different ways: you just want a single object be shared between a set of users (e.g. a Log Service) or you can really only have one instance (e.g. there is only one piece of hardware). In general, I see that most people in the enterprise software world talk about the former. However, experience shows that when projects grow, singletons become less singleton but more a shared object, or at least an appearing to be shared object.
The nice thing in OSGi is that you can model both and the clients of the "singleton" are oblivious of it, nor does it require some central configuration. The reason is that OSGi relies on modules in charge, registering a service is a local decision as is listening to a service.
The power of services are not in its dynamics (they are cool though, especially during development), the essence of service is that they provide full local control inside the module without central configuration. Once you understand how powerful this is, there is no way back :-)
Last, OSGi services are not cumbersome, not since we have DS with annotations. Registering a service is now much simpler than creating a Spring bean, no xml, no central configuration:
// A component registered as a ISingleton service
#Component
public class MyImpl implements ISingleton {
void doSingle() { ... }
}
// A component that uses the ISingleton component
#Component
public class MyConsumer {
#Reference
void setISingleton(ISingleton is) { ... }
}
... And the dynamics come largely for free ...
Short answer: if you don't -- and won't -- need the benefit of an OSGi service (e.g., dynamically-managed service implementations and service searches), then you don't need an OSGi service.
But there is more to consider here than whether or not the service would be cumbersome. Heck, OSGi itself can be considered cumbersome. Will another bundle need to provide an implementation of that class? Maybe not. Will the Core bundle ever shut down or otherwise be unable to provide an implementation on demand? Maybe.
To determine if a service is right for the class in question, read the run-down of the specific benefits of a service on the OSGi Alliance's What Is OSGi page. They have a very good explanation of how your singleton class may become more cumbersome than a service.
Good luck.
My OSGi Threading Model 's poc is resulted into believing me that, every service is a singleton for a service consumer. As the only one service object get registered into the osgi service registry. (but you can override this behavior also). So as far as programming is considered, the behavior of a singleton class and an OSGi service is the same. Your class level variables are shared among the various service consumer calls.
I will say OSGI Service is Singleton++
But there are also differences.
OSGi gives you a separate class-loader for each service which is not possible in a singleton. All {singleton} classes are loaded by a single classloader. We can't have two classes with the same name (fully qualified name) in a singleton but this is possible in OSGi.
In certain situations we must be confirmed that a class should be loaded only once (making hibernate session factory, hdfc service initialization, POJO creations which are heavy initializations required only once). Now if you are living in a Java EE scenario some times your singleton class gets loaded twice by two different classloaders. So this results into two times the execution of a static block; an unnecessary job.
Such classloader problems are easily handled by OSGi (as you are a beginner I feel classloading itself is a problem for you in the next few days).
Another great feature provided by OSGi is updating a bundle.
Consider you changed the code in your singleton class. Now you need to deploy this updated class in your running application. You essentially need to restart the system, so that every singleton class loader updates the new instance of the singleton. This is not required in OSGi, just update the bundle.
I will say if you're going to design for larger applications (enterprise scale), or if you need to design code for a limited hardware capacity (low memory constraints, low computing power) then go for OSGi, it is best for the extreme ends. For all others your normal java coding will work perfectly.
You can manage the life cycle (deploy new version of the service, concurrently run multiple versions etc) of a service but you can't manage the life cycle of singleton without restarting the JVM (even with restart you can just have 1 version available at any point of time).

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