some ant recipe's might not want bundle files stored in RHQ uploaded by a user. There might be bundle files that already exist in a user's existing infrastructure (like a apache server or a code repository) accessible via a URL.

Be able to specify in the recipe archive and raw files that come from a URL. Be able to have ${var} notation in the URL.

example:

<rhq:deployment-unit>
    <rhq:url-file url="http://foo/${user.config.prop}.properties"
                  destinationFile="subdir/${user.config.prop}.properties"
                  replace="true"/> 
    <rhq:url-archive url="http://${server.host.prop}/file.zip">
    ...

Notice that <rhq:url-file> has the same semantics as <rhq:file> - with the name attribute replaced with a "url" attribute - it just gets the content of the file from the URL rather than the local disk at ${basedir}.

Notice that <rhq:url-archive> has the same semantics as <rhq:archive> - with the name attribute replaced with a "url" attribute - it just gets the content of the archive from the URL rather than the local disk at ${basedir}.

An optional further enhancement would be to support credentials of the URL is secured.