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This document provides information to download, install, use and configure the Management Board. It discusses the goals, the architecture and the features. OpenORB is an OpenSource implementation of the CORBA 2.4.2 specification. The Management Board provides a graphical way to set the OpenORB environment and to manage its services.
Managing an Object Request Broker like OpenORB and its services require CORBA experience and in-depth knowledge of the Object Management Group specifications. The Management Board provides a simple to use but powerful application for both user-view and developer-view OpenORB management. It interacts with the ORB core and the services for testing and configuring purposes. Furthermore, the Management Board is an open architecture which enables adding, modifying and removing plugins. A plugin is like a module which is developed for a particular purpose. The Board is provided with two built-in plugins, the first for configuring the OpenORB environment and the second for displaying help. Additional plugins are provided to manage services like the Naming Service or the Interface Repository.
You need the OpenORB distribution to run the Management Board. You also need two other libraries that are located in the lib directory, jhall.jar and jlfgr-1_0.jar.
The Management Board is provided with a build script for the Ant tool. This tool is available in the OpenORB distribution inside the lib directory. So, to compile the Board, you just have to start the build script corresponding to your Operating System: build.bat for Windows or build.sh for Unix.
The Management Board lib directory contains two bundled extension jar files which are required. The main archive openorb_board-{version}.jar is generated in the dist directory.
In order to complete the installation, you should make sure that the following archives are added to your classpath. You need the openorb-{version}.jar archive and all the archives located under the OpenORB lib directory.
This chapter explains how to configure the Management Board.
When using OpenORB, its configuration and all its services information are located in the OpenORB.xml file. This file should be present in either the current directory where you execute your application, your user home directory or your java home directory. We advise you to maintain only one OpenORB.xml file in your system. For more information, you can consult your OpenORB user guide.
The board.xml is provided in the src/config directory of your OpenORB Management Board distribution. You should copy the content of the file into the OpenORB.xml file. Once this is done, save the OpenORB.xml file.
To start the Management Board, type: java org.openorb.board.Board The Management Board will then launch and you can start using it.
<module name="board">
<property name="boardProfile" value="basic"/>
<property name="basicProfile" value="config,help" />
<property name="componentFactory" value="org.openorb.board.factory.DefaultComponentFactory" />
<property name="resourceFactory" value="org.openorb.board.factory.DefaultResourceFactory"/>
<property name="tracesLevel" value="normal" />
<property name="tracesFile" value="" />
<property name="configPluginClass" value="org.openorb.board.plugins.cfg.Plugin" />
<property name="configPluginPath" value="" />
<property name="configPluginHelp" value="" />
</module>
The property boardProfile identifies a profile for using the Management Board. A profile is a set of plugins loaded at startup. When specifying a profile name in boardProfile, one corresponding xxxProfile property must exist. For example, when using a profile named "basic", the boardProfile property value is "basic", and the profile property named "basicProfile" must exist.
Each profile property value is an enumeration of the plugins being provided by this profile. A plugin entry in the OpenORB.xml file is made of three properties. Where "foo" would be a plugin name, these properties will be named "fooPluginClass", "fooPluginPath" and "fooPluginHelp".
The property "fooPluginClass" specifies the plugin's main class that will be executed by the Board.
The property "fooPluginPath" indicates a path or jar archive for retrieving the plugin classes and resources.
The property "fooPluginHelp" specifies an HelpSet help collection as described by the JavaHelp framework. These HelpSet will be generated and packaged within the plugin distribution.
The componentFactory specifies the class used to create the GUI components. Unless you want to customize the Management Board appearance, you should leave that property with its default value.
The resourceFactory specifies the class used to retrieve resources like icons and messages. Unless you want to customize or localize the Management Board, you should leave that property with its default value.
The traceLevel indicates the level of traces when using the Board. Correct values are none, normal and debug. The debug displays the maximum amount of traces.
The traceFile indicates if the traces should be saved in a file. The file name is given as the property value.
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The Interface Repository Plugin was developed in order to be used into the Management Board graphical interface. It represents an independent part of the Interface Repository module.
The IR Plugin requires the ManagementBoard distribution. For more information concerning that module, refer to the documentation which is delivered with the ManagementBoard packaging.
You can download the ManagementBoard module on the openorb.sf.net web site. You need to put the openorb_board-{version}.jar> file in your CLASSPATH environment variable.
Once you have downloaded that module, you can build the IR Plugin application with the ant tool. Enter the following command to build the IR Plugin: (under the InterfaceRepository directory) build plugin You will then find a openorb_ir_plugin-{version}.jar file in the dist directory. Add it to your CLASSPATH environment variable.
You also have to update your OpenORB.xml file to specify that you want to start the Board with the IR Plugin. When editing your OpenORB.xml file, add the following information in the board module.
<property name="irPluginClass"
value="org.openorb.ir.plugin.Plugin"/>
<property name="irPluginPath"
value="<PATH>/irplugin.jar"/>
<property name="irPluginHelp" value=""/>
Add the ir plugin to the plugins list in the board module. For more information about such a configuration, refer to the ManagementBoard documentation. After you've installed and configured OpenORB as explained above, you are now able to launch the Application Board, using this command line: java org.openorb.board.Board
Here is the graphical interface from which you can display and use the Interface Repository.
To connect a specific Interface Repository, click on the Connect... button on this interface. A dialog box will appear enabling you to specify where the Interface Repository is running.
You have two possibilities. The first one is to use initial references. In this case, you do not need to fill in the text fields below. The connection will be done reading the OpenORB configuration file. Otherwise, you can use corbaloc reference. In that case, you have to specify the host and the port number of the system where the Interface Repository is running.
This plugin allows at the moment only browsing of the IR content. An upcoming release will provide the remaining features.
The Naming Service Plugin was developed in order to be used by the Management Board graphical interface. It represents an independent part of the Naming Service module.
The INS Plugin requires the ManagementBoard distribution. For more information concerning that module, refer to the documentation which is delivered with the ManagementBoard packaging.
You can download the ManagementBoard module on the OpenORB web site. You need to put the openorb_board-{version}.jar file in your CLASSPATH environment variable.
Once you have downloaded that module, you can build the INS Plugin application with the Ant tool. From the NamingService directory, run build plugin or sh build.sh plugin to build the INS Plugin.
You will then find a insplugin-{version}.jar file in the dist directory. Add it to your CLASSPATH environment variable.
You also have to update the board.xml file provided by the ManagementBoard to specify that you want to start the Board with the INS Plugin. When editing your OpenORB.xml file, add the following information in the board module.
<property name="namingPluginClass"
value="org.openorb.ins.plugin.Plugin"/>
<property name="namingPluginPath"
value="<PATH>/insplugin-{version}.jar"/>
<property name="namingPluginHelp"
value=""/>
For more information about such a configuration, refer to the ManagementBoard documentation.
After you have installed and configured the Management Board as explained above, you can now launch it by using this command line:
java org.openorb.board.Board -ORBProfile=xxx
where xxx is the board profile that imports the board module.
Here is the graphical interface from which you can display and use the Naming Service.
To connect a specific Naming Service, click on the button on this interface. A dialog box will appear enabling you to specify where the Naming Service is running.
You have two possibilities. The first one is to use initial references. In this case, you do not need to fill in the text fields below. The connection will be done reading the OpenORB configuration file. Otherwise, you can use corbaloc reference. In that case, you have to specify the host and the port number of the system where the Naming Service is running.
This plugin allows you to execute all the operations provided by the Naming Service. You can bind, rebind, bind a Naming Context or a Naming Object and explore all Bindings in a hierarchical way (on a graphical tree representation)
The Notification Service Plugin was developed in order to be used into the Management Board graphical interface.
To build the Notify plugin for the ManagementBoard, use the following command : build plugin You will find the openorb_notify_plugin-x.y.z.jar file in the dist directory.
The plugin requires the ManagementBoard distribution. For more information concerning that module, refer to the documentation which is delivered with the ManagementBoard packaging.
You can download the ManagementBoard module on the http://openorb.sf.net web site. You need to put the openorb_board-{version}.jar file in your CLASSPATH environment variable.
Once you have dowloaded that module, you can build the Trader Plugin application with the ant tool. Enter the following command to build the Plugin : ( under the TradingService directory ) build plugin
You will then find a traderplugin-{version}.jar file in the dist directory. Add it to your CLASSPATH environment variable.
You also have to update your OpenORB.xml file to specify that you want to start the Board with the Trader Plugin. When editing your OpenORB.xml file, add the following information in the board module.
<property name="traderPluginClass"
value="org.openorb.trader.plugin.Plugin">
<property name="traderPluginPath"
value="<PATH>/traderplugin.jar">
<property name="traderPluginHelp" value="">
Add the trader plugin to the plugins list in the board module.
For more information about such a configuration, refer to the ManagementBoard documentation.
Now, before beginning this overview, be sure that the Trading Object Service is running.
When starting the Management Board, a new tab is available for the Trader Plugin. Select this tab and click on the connect button.
The following dialog window appears. If the Trading Service is previously configured on your host, you can resolve it through the initial references, so click on the connect button.
Now, the Trader Plugin is connected to the trading server. The plugin interface is divided into two parts :
- on the left side, a tree provides all topics that can be managed by the plugin,
- on the right side, a panel displays the content of the selected topic of the left side.
For example, click ( on the left side ) on the service types topic. All service types descriptions managed by the trading service are displayed as children of this topic. If you click on one of these children, you will get its description on the right panel, as shown on the next screenshot :
Thanks to the Trader plugin, you can manage all parts of your trading server :
- it's possible to browse the service type descriptions
- it's also possible to browse the offers and the proxy offers
- you can view and modify the trader configuration
- you can also browse the trader links
- at last, you can query some offers from the trader plugin !
To see the offers, click on the offers topic ( on the left side ). All available offers are displayed as children of the offer topic. If you select one of the available offers, its properties values are displayed on the right side.
To view or modify the Trading Server configuration, select on the left side the config topic. The right panel displays all configuration parameters and their values.
To modify a parameter, select it in the right panel then click on the edit button.
At last, to query some offers, click on the query topic on the left side. All existing queries are displayed as children of the query topic. To create a new query, click on the add button. Fill all the required fields and validate.
Then, to execute a query, select the query name ( on the left side ), then click on the execute button. All compliant offers are displayed on the right panel.
