Java RMI

Java RMI contains a wealth of experience in designing and implementing Java's Remote Method Invocation. If you're a novice reader, you will quickly be brought up to speed on why RMI is such a powerful yet easy to use tool for distributed programming, while experts can gain valuable experience for constructing their own enterprise and distributed systems.

With Java RMI, you'll learn tips and tricks for making your RMI code excel. The book also provides strategies for working with serialization, threading, the RMI registry, sockets and socket factories, activation, dynamic class downloading, HTTP tunneling, distributed garbage collection, JNDI, and CORBA. In short, a treasure trove of valuable RMI knowledge packed into one book.

Table of Contents

Preface 

Part I. Designing and Building: The Basics of RMI Applications

1. Streams

      The Core Classes 

      Viewing a File 

      Layering Streams 

      Readers and Writers 

2. Sockets

      Internet Definitions 

      Sockets 

      ServerSockets 

      Customizing Socket Behavior 

      Special-Purpose Sockets 

      Using SSL 

3. A Socket-Based Printer Server

      A Network-Based Printer 

      The Basic Objects 

      The Protocol 

      The Application Itself 

      Evolving the Application 

4. The Same Server, Written Using RMI

      The Basic Structure of RMI 

      The Architecture Diagram Revisited 

      Implementing the Basic Objects 

      The Rest of the Server 

      The Client Application 

      Summary 

5. Introducing the Bank Example

      The Bank Example 

      Sketching a Rough Architecture 

      The Basic Use Case 

      Additional Design Decisions 

      A Distributed Architecture for the Bank Example 

      Problems That Arise in Distributed Applications 

6. Deciding on the Remote Server

      A Little Bit of Bias 

      Important Questions When Thinking About Servers 

      Should We Implement Bank or Account? 

7. Designing the Remote Interface

      Important Questions When Designing Remote Interfaces 

      Building the Data Objects 

      Accounting for Partial Failure 

8. Implementing the Bank Server

      The Structure of a Server 

      Implementing the Server 

      Generating Stubs and Skeletons 

9. The Rest of the Application

      The Need for Launch Code 

      Our Actual Launch Code 

      Build Test Applications 

      Build the Client Application 

      Deploying the Application 

Part II. Drilling Down: Scalability

10. Serialization

      The Need for Serialization 

      Using Serialization 

      How to Make a Class Serializable 

      The Serialization Algorithm 

      Versioning Classes 

      Performance Issues 

      The Externalizable Interface 

11. Threads

      More Than One Client 

      Basic Terminology 

      Threading Concepts 

      Support for Threads in Java 

      Deadlock 

      Threading and RMI 

12. Implementing Threading

      The Basic Task 

      Guidelines for Threading 

      Pools: An Extended Example 

      Some Final Words on Threading 

13. Testing a Distributed Application

      Testing the Bank Application 

14. The RMI Registry

      Why Use a Naming Service? 

      The RMI Registry 

      The RMI Registry Is an RMI Server 

      Examining the Registry 

      Limitations of the RMI Registry 

      Security Issues 

15. Naming Services

      Basic Design, Terminology, and Requirements 

      Requirements for Our Naming Service 

      Federation and Threading 

      The Context Interface 

      The Value Objects 

      ContextImpl 

      Switching Between Naming Services 

      The Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) 

16. The RMI Runtime

      Reviewing the Mechanics of a Remote Method Call 

      Distributed Garbage Collection 

      RMI's Logging Facilities 

      Other JVM Parameters 

17. Factories and the Activation Framework

      Resource Management 

      Factories 

      Implementing a Generic Factory 

      A Better Factory 

      Persistence and the Server Lifecycle 

      Activation 

      A Final Word About Factories 

Part III. Advanced Topics

18. Using Custom Sockets

      Custom Socket Factories 

      Incorporating a Custom Socket into an Application 

19. Dynamic Classloading

      Deploying Can Be Difficult 

      Classloaders 

      How Dynamic Classloading Works 

      The Class Server 

      Using Dynamic Classloading in an Application 

20. Security Policies

      A Different Kind of Security Problem 

      Permissions 

      Security Managers 

      Setting Up a Security Policy 

21. Multithreaded Clients

      Different Types of Remote Methods 

      Handling Printer-Type Methods 

      Handling Report-Type Methods 

      Generalizing from These Examples 

22. HTTP Tunneling

      Firewalls 

      CGI and Dynamic Content 

      HTTP Tunneling 

      A Servlet Implementation of HTTP Tunneling 

      Modifying the Tunneling Mechanism 

      The Bank via HTTP Tunneling 

      Drawbacks of HTTP Tunneling 

      Disabling HTTP Tunneling 

23. RMI, CORBA, and RMI/IIOP

      How CORBA Works 

      The Bank Example in CORBA 

      A Quick Comparison of CORBA and RMI 

      RMI on Top of CORBA 

      Converting the Bank Example to RMI/IIOP 

Index