As I say we never looked in to how people would extend the Shell. We could make it a little easier I agree but there is nothing wrong with editing the config. We put it out in text files for just that reason
I like the idea of a separate annotation for User Commands.

I'd stick with the Command annotation as well.

thanks. That exactly what I did. Just thought there might be a way that works without customizing the DM server config.
Anyway, for the record, here the detailed description:

- I created a tagging interface "UserCommand" that marks all my command implementations in the user region and has no methods.

To bridge the services of the user region into the kernel, the following changes are made to the DM Server config file com.springsource.kernel.userregion.properties:
* Add to packageImports: com.springsource.kernel.shell;version="[2.0.0,2.0.1)" to make the Command annotation available in the user region.
* Add to serviceExports: ".UserCommand" to bridge all Services that implement UserCommand to the kernel

So far, it works like a charm. To use CommandCompleter as well one just needs to add this interface to serviceExports as well. I did not yet used the ServiceRegistry based command resolver, just the one based on the Command annotation.

I could not find a way to bridge services based on annotations. May I suggest to include a tagging interface in com.springsource.shell? This way, this procedure would be less of a hack.

Cheers, Denis

The shell has had a bit of a rewrite since this blog post went out. The Shell is run in the Kernel region and not available to the user region. Although we do not support the addition of new commands I don't think it would be very hard. From your comment I'm guessing you've had a look at the code. All you would need to do is deploy a normal bundle that publishes commands in the same way that the other ones do. Then edit the config files to allow your service to be mapped up to the kernel region. I think you would only need to add your service to the 'serviceExports' list in the 'com.springsource.kernel.userregion.properties' file. I'd be interested to know how you get on as we haven't tried this with the new shell system.

Thanks, Chris.

Does the service property based discovery actually work with services that are not provided as part of the kernel? How can I make the shell aware of a command provided as service in the user realm?

Cheers,
Denis

Well, the dm Shell is our own implementation, any similarities are coincidental. I'm glad you like it though.

Chris.

Very good, I always liked their commandline interfaces better anyway.

Have you tried the packages command, by the sounds of it this should give you most of what you want. If not could you give me some more detail? As for the tree structure for uses conflicts, I can see how this would help. I have raised a Jira for it so it gets discussed in the team. Users conflicts are hard to resolve, we will need to be careful with any interface we create for their resolution. (https://issuetracker.springsource.com/browse/DMS-1765)

@Alex

We are making some enhancements to the services information in our current sprint which should help you a lot. I'm going to ask someone working on the Hyperic integration to comment on your 2nd point.

Thanks to both of you for your comments.

just two suggestions:
1. we're using dm Servers "Bundle Overview" tab inside of STS very often to resolve resolution errors as it shows which of the exported services are currently being consumed by which other bundles. It would be nice if you could enrich the output of the "bundle details" command mentioned above with this information

2. Enhance dm Server-Hyperic HQ integration in the way that
a) the dm Shell of the currently selected dm Server node can be accessed from within Hyperic
b) ONE dm Shell can be send (from within HQ) to a group of dm Servers and the outputs of each instance is sent back and made available in Hyperic
c) resolution conflicts/ problems – as mentioned above – can be seen within Hyperic (Actually I'm not too sure whether this can not already be realized with the current version of Hyperic)

Thanks in advance and please keep up the good work!

Regards
Alex

It would be a great help if some utility commands can be provided in the console which will help me in debugging.

My great concern was import/export packages and sometime i run with uses conflict.

During this time some utility like

Given a package name – i want the bundles exposing it

– different versions available along with bundles exposing it.

Some tree structure which helps me resolve uses conflict etc would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Sudheer Krishna