Chapter 27. Gadget Importer Tool

⁠Chapter 27. Gadget Importer Tool

The gadget importer allows you to add gadgets to the application registry. The tool uses a WebApp folder which contains the gadgets configuration. WebApp has a standard structure that is processed by the Gadget importer.

The WebApp folder consist of web.xml and gadget.xml configuration files.

Local gadget resources

For local gadgets the source and resources must be located in the same folder. The Gadget importer tool searches for the folder containing the gadget source followed by searching the resources in the folder. The Gadget importer tool stores the gadget resources in JCR. So, placing the gadget resources in a different folder other than the gadget source can cause many unwanted files to be stored as the resource files of the gadget.

Report a bug

⁠27.1. Importing Gadgets

⁠27.1.1. Importing Gadgets

This section explains the structure and configuration of a WebApp. WebApp is processed by the Gadget importer tool.

For more information on using user interface to import gadgets, see User guide.

Report a bug

⁠27.1.2. Creating a Standard WebApp Folder to Import Gadgets

Red Hat JBoss Portal allows you to create a WebApp folder to contain the configuration of the list of gadgets which are automatically added to the Application Registry.

This section explains the structure and configuration of a WebApp. WebApp is processed by the Gadget importer.

Report a bug

⁠27.1.3. Configuring the WebApp Files

The WebApp structure consists of web.xml and gadget.xml files.

To register WebApp to RedHat JBoss Portal, add the parameter org.gatein.wci.api.GateInServlet in web.xml file.

<web-app>
  <display-name>eXoGadgets</display-name>

  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>GateInServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.gatein.wci.api.GateInServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>0</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>

  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>GateInServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/gateinservlet</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

The gadget.xml file locates the configuration of gadgets that are added to the Application Registry.

 <gadgets
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.gatein.org/xml/ns/gatein_objects_1_0 http://www.gatein.org/xml/ns/gadgets_1_0"
    xmlns="http://www.gatein.org/xml/ns/gadgets_1_0">

	<gadget name="To-do">
		<path>/gadgets/Todo/Todo.xml</path>
	</gadget>

	<gadget name="Calendar">
		<path>/gadgets/Calendar/Calendar.xml</path>
	</gadget>

	<gadget name="Calculator">
		<path>/gadgets/Calculator/Calculator.xml</path>
	</gadget>

	<gadget name="rssAggregator">
		<path>/gadgets/rssAggregator/rssAggregator.xml</path>
	</gadget>

  <gadget name="Currency">
    <url>http://www.donalobrien.net/apps/google/currency.xml</url>
  </gadget>

  <gadget name="ServicesManagement">
    <path>/gadgets/ServicesManagement/ServicesManagement.xml</path>
  </gadget>
</gadgets>

The gadget.xml has three important tags, gadget,path, and url.

<gadget>: A gadget is configured in the <gadget> tag. The name attribute is the gadget name. The gadget name is managed by the Application Registry.
<path>: This tag is the child of the <gadget> tag. It contains the path to the gadget and helps the Gadget service to find the location of the gadget source and resources. It is known as the local path of the server.
<url>: This tag is configured to indicate the URL of the gadget incase the source of gadget resides on an external server.

Note

The Gadget importer searches for a folder that contains the gadget source, then finds resources in the folder and store them into JCR as the resources of the gadget. Therefore, putting the gadget resources in the folder different from the gadget source can cause unnecessary files to be stored as the resource files of the gadget.

Report a bug

⁠27.2. Virtual Servers for Gadgets

⁠27.2.1. Setting up Virtual Servers for Gadget Rendering

Red Hat JBoss Portal recommends using two virtual hosts for security. If the gadget is running on a different domain than the container (the website that contains the application), it is unable to interfere with the portal by modifying code or cookies.

An example, where the portal is hosted on http://www.sample.com and the gadgets on http://www.samplemodules.com .

To configure virtual server for gadgets, set the gadgets.hostName parameter value to path/to/gadgetServer in GadgetRegisteryService.

⁠

Example 27.1. Setting the value variable for the gadget hostname

<component>
  <key>org.exoplatform.application.gadget.GadgetRegistryService</key>
  <type>org.exoplatform.application.gadget.jcr.GadgetRegistryServiceImpl</type>
  <init-params>
    <value-param>
      <name>gadgets.hostName</name>
      <description>Gadget server url</description>
      <value>http://localhost:8080/GateInGadgetServer/gadgets/</value>
    </value-param>
  </init-params>
</component>

Portal supports multiple rendering servers to balance the load across multiple servers.

Note

When deploying on the same server, the gadget must be initiated before handling any calls requests. For example, if the webapp GateInGadgets uses org.exoplatform.application.gadget.GadgetRegister so the webapp must be initiated before it is called .

Report a bug

⁠27.2.2. Configuring Gadget Server

The gadget container uses three security files for authenticating and authorizing gadgets.

key.txt
oauthkey.pem
oauthkey_pub.pem

The location of the security keys for different servers are listed below.

JBoss: $JBOSS_HOME/standalone/configuration/gatein/gadgets . This folder is configured by system variables in $JBOSS_HOME/standalone/configuration/gatein/configuration.properties .

⁠

Example 27.2. Configuring Security key paths

gatein.gadgets.securitytokenkeyfile=$\{gatein.conf.dir\}/gadgets/key.txt
gatein.gadgets.signingkeyfile=$\{gatein.conf.dir\}/gadgets/oauthkey.pem

If you have other files update the path variables to point to your files.

The key.txt file consist of a secret key, which is used to encrypt the security token for user authentication. At portal startup, this file is read through the gatein.gadgets.securitytokenkeyfile path.

If the key.txt file is not found, JBoss Portal generates a new key.txtand stores it in the gatein.gadgets.securitytokenkeyfile path.

The oauthkey.pem and oauthkey_pub.pem are a key pair of RSA cryptography standard. oauthkey.pem is the private key and oauthkey_pub.pem is the public key. These keys are the default keys of the gadget container which is used by OAuth gadget to authorize with external service providers.

Report a bug

⁠27.2.3. Configuring Gadget Proxy and Concat

The proxy and concat server must be on the same domain as the gadget server. You can configure the container in using eXoGadgetServer:/WEB-INF/classes/containers/default/container.js .

⁠

Example 27.3. Setting proxy and concat server url

"gadgets.content-rewrite" : {
  "include-urls": ".*",
  "exclude-urls": "",
  "include-tags": ["link", "script", "embed", "img", "style"],
  "expires": "86400",
  "proxy-url": "http://localhost:8080/eXoGadgetServer/gadgets/proxy?url=",
  "concat-url": "http://localhost:8080/eXoGadgetServer/gadgets/concat?"
},

Add the following code to the beginning of the JVM to allow external gadgets to obtain a connection to a server behind a firewall.

-Dhttp.proxyHost=proxyhostURL -Dhttp.proxyPort=proxyPortNumber -Dhttp.proxyUser=someUserName -Dhttp.proxyPassword=somePassword

Report a bug

⁠27.3. Shindig Server

⁠27.3.1. Configuring Shindig Container

Red Hat JBoss Portal uses a custom Shindig OpenSocial container for handling gadgets. The Shindig configuration file is located at: $JBOSS_HOME/JPP_HOME/standalone/configuration/gatein/gadgets/shindig.properties

Note

For Shindig configuration options, see the Apache Shindig documentation.

Report a bug

⁠27.3.2. Configuring Shindig Container for Offline access

The default features available in the current version of shindig require online access. If the server starts without internet access, there is a minor delay of usually 1 sec at startup when the server tries to access third party services.

Due to specific server settings, the delay at startup can be longer. If you are using Red Hat JBoss Portal offline and the gadget server has long time outs during startup, you can configure the shindig server to exclude online features.

To configure shindig server in offline mode you need to modify the shindig configuration file located at, $JBOSS_HOME/standalone/configuration/gatein/gadgets/shindig.properties

The location of feature manifest is changed from online to offline by excluding the online-features.txt file reference.

⁠

Example 27.4. Online Mode setting

# Location of feature manifests (comma separated)
shindig.features.default=res://features/default-features.txt,res://features/online-features.txt

⁠

Example 27.5. Offline Mode setting

# Location of feature manifests (comma separated)
shindig.features.default=res://features/default-features.txt

Important

In offline mode the analytics is not available for the gadgets.

Report a bug