reference protocol support in Karaf

Question

When I tried to use reference:file:/path/to.jar as a bundle URL in Karaf integration tests, I got "Unknown protocol: reference" errors. There are some mentions of reference: URLs on Karaf mailing list, but this isn't clear to me:

1. Should they work by default?

2. If not, how do I enable them? Presumably I need a suitable bundle providing URLHandlerService, but which one?

Answer 1

1. The URL handlers in Karaf are provided by the Pax-Url project, I don't think the reference one is provided by default (as primarily for test support).

2. You can find pax-url-reference via maven here