RMI server lifecycle/threading

[Delta-Z]

Hi everybody
I am looking for a good reference on how the RMI remote object
runtime is managed:

*) Is it possible to register another object from within a remote
call (server side)? Is it possible to unbind an object from within a
remote call? Does the main process exit automatically when all the
objects it bound are unbind?
*) What threads/processes are running to support remote calls? How
does the call thread pool operate?

I don't want to see any actual code, just to understand exactly
what is happening. If you can recommend a book, it would be just as
good!

Thanks a lot
Dmitry

 

[Esmond Pitt]

*) Is it possible to register another object from within a remote
call (server side)?
Yes.

Is it possible to unbind an object from within a
remote call?
Yes.

Does the main process exit automatically when all the
objects it bound are unbind?

No. It exits when all the required DGC has taken place. unbinds() are a
necessary precondition to this.

You could have answered these three questions for yourself with a little
testing.

>
*) What threads/processes are running to support remote calls? How
does the call thread pool operate?

Unspecified, but the one thing you *cannot* assume is that it's
single-threaded. In practice in Sun's implementation there is a
client-side connection pool, which causes a server-side thread pool to
exist, one thread per pooled connection. IBM's implementation uses a
server-side thread pool in addition to that so thread creation is
conserved even more.

I don't want to see any actual code, just to understand exactly
what is happening. If you can recommend a book, it would be just as
good!

<plug>
http://www.telekinesis.com.au/wipv3_6/java.rmi.A21 ;-)
</plug>
I wrote it.