Gobal properties (configuration) in Nuxeo5

Hi all,

A few weeks ago a global configuration mechanism was added to Nuxeo5. I 
will explain here
how this is working and what's this good for.

So, what's it good for?

As you know most of Nuxeo5 modules (functionalities) are configured 
through XML component descriptors
that supports defining properties, extension points and contributing 
extensions to other components.
So the configuration is defined at component level.
But there are cases when you want to define global properties accessible 
to all components in the system.
Examples:
- you need a name and a version for your product so that it may be 
displayed in the web interface or exposed by some components to clients 
through web services (ex: getProductName() getproductVersion())
This should be defined at a global level in the application
- you need to setup some ports to listen to in your component. But want 
to put this configuration in a centralized place
so that when you need to change the ports used by nuxeo5 you modify only 
one file.
For example the streaming service is listening to the port 3233, and the 
remoting service to 62474
If you want to modify the ports used by nuxeo5 you need to modify the 
StreamingService.xml and RemotingService.xml filers from nuxeo-runtime.jar
Using a global configuration file you will need to modify only one file.


How it works?

To define global properties you simply copy a java property file in 
nuxeo.ear/config directory.
The file should have one of the following extensions: *.ini, *.config, 
*.properties
All properties declared in these files will be loaded at start time and 
made accessible  through NXRuntime API.
Example:

NXRuntime.getRuntime().getProperty("org.nuxeo.ecm.product.name");

Also you can use property keys inside component XML descriptors as part 
of property values.
Example:

<component name="org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming" version="1.0.0">
 <implementation 
class="org.nuxeo.runtime.services.streaming.StreamingService"/>
 <property name="isServer" type="Boolean" 
value="${org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming.isServer}"/>
 ...
</component>

The property "isServer" of the org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming component 
will be expanded to the value
of the global property "org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming.isServer"

You can also use expansion when defining global components:

Example:
org.nuxeo.runtime.host=localhost
org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming.serverLocator=socket://${org.nuxeo.runtime.host}:3233

The property org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming.serverLocator will be expanded 
to socket://localhost:3233


By default Nuxeo5 comes with a configuration file named nuxeo.config and 
that for now contains the following properties:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# application instance config
org.nuxeo.ecm.instance.name          = Nuxeo5    
org.nuxeo.ecm.instance.description = Nuxeo ECM server on JBoss

# product config
org.nuxeo.ecm.product.name    = Nuxeo5    
org.nuxeo.ecm.product.version = 5.1M2

# runtime remoting config
org.nuxeo.runtime.server.enabled=true
org.nuxeo.runtime.server.port=62474
org.nuxeo.runtime.server.host=127.0.0.1

# streaming config
org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming.isServer=true
org.nuxeo.runtime.streaming.serverLocator=socket://127.0.0.1:3233
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Bogdan