Installing Talend ESB Runtime/Container as a Service

Installing the Talend Runtime as a service is rather easy but there are few options you would consider to customize even more the installation.

This has been tested with version 7.2.1.

First you can follow the instructions directly from the Talend Help Center to create the wrapper. A wrapper is a Windows executable which “wraps” the Talend Runtime so it can be executed and installed as a Windows service.

Once “transformed” in a Windows service you can use all the service properties to control it and the service console to start, stop and restart as well as to configure the starting type (manual, automatic, …).

When the wrapper has been created, using the simple wrapper:install command there are some new files on your container folder:

• container/etc/karaf-wrapper.conf
• container/bin/karaf-service.bat

The karaf- is just a prefix you can change with the wrapper:install command specifying some parameters (see the Talend guide).

Other files are not relevant right now. What interests to us is the karaf-service.bat which is the script we need to use to install and remove the service.

• karaf-service install
• karaf-service remove

Of course to remove a service you can even use other Windows tools.

The service is installed with name karaf if you want to name it differently you should generate the wrapper with a different name. Renaming the files is not enough since the prefix is even used inside the generated batch (even though it is easy to modify).

The karaf-wrapper.conf

The karaf-wrapper.conf is where you can set some working parameter of the service. In that file there is references to the service that you should not change, otherwise you won’t be able to run the karaf-service.bat successfully.

Other parameter can be changed, for example the log file name, and they are used on next restart.

An importan value you may want to change is the Java home under the key set.default.JAVA_HOME to point to a stable JDK installation. Usually I’ve a dedicated JDK or JRE unzipped in a folder. Pay attention in using, on Windows, system installations of Java, ’cause an update or a removal to have a new version may change the Java home.

Not least, once the system is working correctly with a specific Java version, be sure to make deep tests before move to a new major version. Hence, having a specific JDK installation for Talend remains a good idea (with a little more maintenance effort).