featureUtility commands

The featureUtility commands make it easier to install Open Liberty features and view your Maven repository settings.

The following featureUtility commands are available:

  • featureUtility find: The command finds features in the repositories that are applicable to your configuration and allows you to view detailed information about these features.

  • featureUtility help: The command displays information about the featureUtility command, with details about its actions and options.

  • featureUtility installFeature: The command installs a single feature or a list of space-separated features into Open Liberty from Maven Central, or from a Maven repository that’s hosted inside your firewall.

  • featureUtility installServerFeatures: The command installs the required features that are listed in the server.xml file of a server.

  • featureUtility viewSettings: The command is used to view Maven repository and proxy settings when Maven repositories other than Maven Central are configured.

Modifications for featureUtility commands

You can modify several behaviors of the featureUtility commands by declaring environment variables in the shell environment or by specifying properties in the featureUtility.properties file that’s located in the {wlp.install.dir}/etc/ directory.

Properties that are specified in the featureUtility.properties file take precedence over environment variables that are declared in the shell environment. For example, if you specify the featureLocalRepo property in the featureUtility.properties file, then any value set with the FEATURE_LOCAL_REPO environment variable is overridden. You can specify modifications to the featureUtility commands by using properties in the featureUtility.properties file rather than environment variables. You can also easily see Maven repository and proxy settings that are contained in the featureUtility.properties file by running the featureUtility viewSettings command. Settings that are configured with environment variables don’t show up with this information.

The following table lists the environment variables and their corresponding properties that you can specify to modify the featureUtility commands:

Environment variableCorresponding propertiesDescription

FEATURE_REPO_URL

mavenCentralMirror.url

Overrides Maven Central with an on-premises Maven repository.

FEATURE_REPO_USER

mavenCentralMirror.user

The username for FEATURE_REPO_URL user credentials.

FEATURE_REPO_PASSWORD

mavenCentralMirror.password

The password for FEATURE_REPO_URL user credentials.

FEATURE_LOCAL_REPO

featureLocalRepo

Overrides the local Maven repository.

FEATURE_VERIFY

feature.verify

Specifies how features must be verified during a process or an installation. Supported values are enforce, skip, all, and warn. If this option is not specified, the default value is enforce.

  • enforce: Verifies the signatures of all Liberty features except for user features. It checks the integrity and authenticity of the features that are provided by the Liberty framework.

  • skip: Choosing this option skips the verification process altogether. No feature signatures are downloaded or checked. It expedites the installation process but must be used with caution, as it bypasses an important security step.

  • all: Verifies both the Liberty features and the user features. The features that are provided by the Liberty framework and any additional user features or components are checked for integrity.

  • warn: Similar to the all option, warn also verifies both the Liberty features and user features. This option allows the process to continue, even if some feature signatures cannot be validated. A verification failure does not immediately end the installation process, but it results in a warning message.

no_proxy

http.nonProxyHosts

Requires Open Liberty to use a direct connection instead of a proxy for certain hosts. Specify a list of hostname patterns separated by pipes (|) or commas (,). Patterns can start or end with an asterisk (*) for wildcards. For any hostname that matches a specified pattern, Open Liberty connects to the host directly instead of going through a proxy.

http_proxy

proxyHost, proxyPort, proxyUser, and proxyPassword

Configures the outbound HTTP proxy.

https_proxy

proxyHost, proxyPort, proxyUser, and proxyPassword

Configures the outbound HTTPS proxy.


Verify user features

You can verify your user features by providing the long key ID and key URL to reference your public key that is stored on a key server. Alternatively, you can specify a local file path for your public key. The supported protocols for the key URL are HTTP, HTTPS, and file.

For more information about generating a key pair, signing the user feature, and distributing your key, see Working with PGP Signatures.

The long key ID is a 64-bit identifier that is used to uniquely identify a PGP key. Provide the long key ID for your public key. In the following example, the key ID provided is 0xBD9FD5BE9E68CA00.

myKey.keyid=0xBD9FD5BE9E68CA00

You can provide the full URL of your public key. The URL must be accessible and point to a location where your key can be retrieved. In the following example, the key URL provided is https://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&options=mr&search=0xBD9FD5BE9E68CA00. This URL is specific to the Ubuntu key server and includes the key ID as a search parameter.

myKey.keyurl=https://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&options=mr&search=0xBD9FD5BE9E68CA00

Alternatively, you can provide a local file path instead of a URL. If you have your public key that is stored as a file on your local system, you can specify the file path in the myKey.keyurl parameter. In the following example, the file path that is provided is /pubkey.asc, but you must replace it with the actual path to your public key file.

myKey.keyurl=/pubkey.asc

Install user features

You can specify the maven coordinates for the features BOM file to install user features by adding the customBomFileName.featuresbom property in the featureUtility.properties file, as shown in the following example:

customBomFileName.featuresbom=my.maven.coordinate:my-features-bom:version

Define custom repositories

You can also define remote repositories by adding the customRepoName.url property in the featureUtility.properties file. Each repository name must be unique, and defined repositories are accessed in the order that they’re specified. If a repository requires a username and password, also set the customRepoName.user and customRepoName.password properties. In the following example, two custom repositories, remoteRepo1 and remoteRepo2, are defined. The remoteRepo2 repository is secure so it also requires a username and password:

remoteRepo1.url=http://my-remote-server1/maven2
remoteRepo2.url=https://my-remote-server2/secure/maven2
remoteRepo2.user=operator
remoteRepo2.password={aes}KM8dhwcv892Ss1sawu9R+