Installing and Managing Features

As explained in the  Introduction, the recommended way to provision WSO2 products is to install features using the component manager. WSO2 products have integrated Equinox P2, which enables user-friendly provisioning. You can also manually install bundles, dependencies and configuration files of a feature, but this method is not recommended because it is complex and error prone.

The steps below explain how to do the following:

1. Log in to the management console and select Features from the Configure menu.
   
   
2. The Feature Management page opens.

   Adding a feature repository

3. First step is to add a feature repository. If you already have one, skip to Installing a feature. Else, go to the Repository Management tab and click Add Repository.

4. Provide a name and repository location and click Add.  For example,

   WSO2 features are available in the   Equinox   P2 repository, which you can access from the Release Matrix page on the WSO2 Website (see the Links column for the platform release corresponding to the product version you are running).   

   Feature manager is unable to add a remote repository when it is behind a proxy. In that case, download the remote repository to your environment and add it by selecting the  local  option.

5. After adding the repository, you can change its name using the Edit link associated with it.

   You cannot change the repository URL after adding it. To change the URL, you must remove the old repository and add a new one.

6. By default, all repositories are enabled. When you perform a provisioning operation, metadata and artifacts are searched only in the enabled repositories. You can disable a repository using the Disable link associated with it.

   Installing features

7.  In the Feature Management page, click Available Features tab. Then, select a repository from the drop-down menu. For example,

   Described below are the two options that appears in the above screenshot.

   Show only the latest versions

   Some repositories contain multiple versions of features. If you are only interested in the latest versions, click the Show only the latest versions option.

   Group features by category

   A feature category is a logical grouping of the features that constitute a particular WSO2 product. Categorizing logically related features makes it easier for users to search and install related features together. You can select the entire list of features of a particular product at once. Under these product-based feature categories, there are other feature categories based on the product features.
   
   If you un-check this option when finding features, you will see an uncategorized, flat feature list from which individual features can be selected separately. For example, the features required to install WSO2 Data Services Server is grouped under the Data Service Server feature category as shown below.  

   

8. Once the repository is selected, click Find Features.

   You can use the search facility to find a particular feature. Search only returns available, uninstalled features. It excludes the ones that are already installed.

9. From the list of features that appear, select the ones you want to add and click Install.

10. The Install Details page appears. Verify the provided information and click Next.

11. Read and accept the terms of license agreement.

12. The installation process starts. It may take a few minutes to download the necessary components.

13. Once the installation process is complete, click Finish and restart the server for the changes to take effect.

14. Go to the Installed Features tab to browse through the list of installed features.

    Turning your product to a back-end/front-end server

15. WSO2 products support back-end, front-end separation of features. This allows you to define multiple back-end servers and a single front-end server to manage them, typically in a clustered environment. You can convert a given product either to a back-end server or to a front-end server by removing the irrelevant features.
    
    For example, if you want to turn a particular product instance to only a back-end server, you can uninstall all the front-end features. To do that, select Front-end from the drop down menu as follows:
    
    This lists all the front-end features that are currently installed in the system.  
16. Select the features you want to remove and click Uninstall.  

Unsuccessful feature installation can cause server startup failures. See Recovering from Unsuccessful Feature Installation.