Personal tools
You are here: Home Developer Infrastructure Teams Build and Release Documentation Module-based additional software installer

Module-based additional software installer

A requirements document for module-based custom installers.

Purpose: The purpose of this feature is to allow modules to install additional required software a) when said module is installed along with a distribution of Kepler, or b) when said module is installed by itself from the Module Manager running off of an already-installed version of Kepler. 

Features:

sub-feature 1) A module will be able to have a modules-info/install.xml file which will be read by the build system when the Kepler installer is being built.  If this install.xml file is found for any module, the content of it will be inserted into the auto-generated configuration for the IZPack installer, thus allowing a module to affect the contents of the Kepler installer. 

sub-feature 2) Another mode by which a module can be installed is by the Module Manager at Kepler runtime.  Modules need to be allowed to make the same installation customizations in this mode as when they are being installed along with a Kepler release.  Sub-feature 2 allows that a module can contain n jar file within its module-info directory.  Each jar file is is a platform specific (or if there is a single jar file, platform neutral) installer for the additional software required by the module.  The jar files will have a standard naming convention, yet to be determined, which will allow the Module Manager to determine the correct one to execute and then to execute it.  The jar file will contain an IZPack installer for the software required by the module and the IZPack installer will be executed by the Module Manager.

The jar files are deposited in the module at publishing time.  The build system will be responsible for building the installer when the module is being published and adding the jar(s) to the published module. 

Document Actions