Anatomy of a Roboconf Application

A Roboconf application is a ZIP archive with the following structure.
Reading this page may help to understand what Roboconf does.

MyApp/
│
├── descriptor/
│	└── application.properties
│
├── graph/
│	├── *.graph file
│	├── Component 1/ (recipes)
│	├── Component 2/ (recipes)
│	└── Component 3/ (recipes)
│
├── instances/ (optional)
│	└── *.instances
│
├── commands/ (optional)
│	└── *.commands
│
├── probes/ (optional)
│	├── Component 1.measures (probe configuration)
│	├── Component 1.measures.properties (probe parameterization)
│	├── *.measures (probe configurations)
│	└── *.measures.properties (probe parameterization)
│
└── rules.autonomic/ (optional)
 	└── *.drl

Let’s detail each directory.

descriptor/ contains the main Roboconf configuration file, application.properties.
This file describes the application itself (name, description, location of the main model files…).

graph/ contains at least one .graph file (whose name is specified in application.properties).
Graph files list Software components and their relations (runtime dependencies, containment relations…). graph/ also contains one sub-directory for each component listed in the graph model. This sub-directory must contain all the files necessary to manage the component’s life cycle (e.g. scripts, Software packages, configuration files…)

instances/ contains .instances files.
Instances define the effective runtime model, that is to say Software instances that already run or those that are ready to be deployed.

commands/ contains .commands files.
A .commands file is like a script with Roboconf instructions. They can be used to define administration procedures to invoke from the web console or by the autonomic manager.

probes/ contains configurations for probes managed by Roboconf agents.
These probes are mainly used with the autonomic to gather information about machines and programs and be able to react when something goes wrong.

rules.autonomic/ contains .drl files.
It is the same extension than Drools rules, with almost the same syntax. These rules allow to specify automatic reactions Roboconf will undertake when several events (notified by Roboconf agents and their probes) are met. These automatic reactions must be specified as Roboconf commands.