Getting Started Using RMI

This tutorial shows you the steps to follow to create a distributed version of the classic Hello World program using JavaTM Remote Method Invocation (RMI). While you work through this example, you will probably come up with a number of related questions. You may find the answers in the RMI FAQ, or you may wish to look in the email archives of the rmi-users alias. If you'd like to subscribe to the rmi-users email alias, click here.

The distributed Hello World example uses an applet to make a remote method call to an RMI server, running on the host from which the applet was downloaded. When the applet runs, "Hello World!" is displayed on the client browser.

This tutorial is organized as follows:

  1. The steps to write the source files and the HTML file
  2. The steps to compile and deploy class files and the HTML file
  3. The steps to start the RMI registry, server, and applet
The files needed for this tutorial are: Note:  For the remainder of this tutorial, the terms "remote object implementation," "object implementation," and "implementation" may be used interchangeably to refer to the class, examples.hello.HelloImpl, which implements a remote interface.

For all of the source code used in this tutorial, you may choose from the following formats:

Write the Source and HTML files

Because the JavaTM programming language requires a mapping between the fully-qualified package name of a class and the directory path to that class, you should decide on package and directory names before you begin writing any code written in the Java programming language. This mapping allows the compiler for the Java programming language to know the directory in which to find the class files mentioned in a program. For the programs in this tutorial, the package name is examples.hello and the source directory is $HOME/mysrc/examples/hello.

To create the directory for your source files in the SolarisTM operating environment, execute the command: 

    mkdir -p $HOME/mysrc/examples/hello
On Microsoft Windows platforms, you would go to the directory of your choice, and type: 
    mkdir mysrc
    mkdir mysrc\examples
    mkdir mysrc\examples\hello

There are three tasks to complete in this section:

  1. Define the functions of the remote class as an interface written in the Java programming language
  2. Write the implementation and server classes
  3. Write a client program that uses the remote service

Define the functions of the remote class as an interface written in the Java programming language

In the Java programming language, a remote object is an instance of a class that implements a Remote interface. Your remote interface will declare each of the methods that you would like to call from other JavaTM virtual machines* (JVMs). Remote interfaces have the following characteristics:

Here is the interface definition for the remote interface, examples.hello.Hello. The interface contains just one method, sayHello, which returns a string to the caller: 


    package examples.hello;

    import java.rmi.Remote;
    import java.rmi.RemoteException;

    public interface Hello extends Remote {
	String sayHello() throws RemoteException;
    }
Because remote method invocations can fail in very different ways from local method invocations (due to network-related communication problems and server problems), remote methods will report communication failures by throwing a java.rmi.RemoteException.  If you want more information on failure and recovery in distributed systems, you may wish to read A Note on Distributed Computing.

Write the implementation and server classes

At a minimum, a remote object implementation class must:

A "server" class, in this context, is the class which has a main method that creates an instance of the remote object implementation, and binds that instance to a name in the rmiregistry. The class that contains this main method could be the implementation class itself, or another class entirely.

In this example, the main method is part of examples.hello.HelloImpl. The server program needs to:

An explanation of each of the preceding six steps follows the source for HelloImpl.java: 
	package examples.hello;
	
	import java.rmi.Naming;
	import java.rmi.RemoteException;
	import java.rmi.RMISecurityManager;
	import java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject;
	
	public class HelloImpl extends UnicastRemoteObject implements Hello {
	
	    public HelloImpl() throws RemoteException {
		super();
	    }
	
	    public String sayHello() {
		return "Hello World!";
	    }
	
	    public static void main(String args[]) {
	
		// Create and install a security manager
		if (System.getSecurityManager() == null) {
		    System.setSecurityManager(new RMISecurityManager());
		}
	
		try {
		    HelloImpl obj = new HelloImpl();
	
		    // Bind this object instance to the name "HelloServer"
		    Naming.rebind("//myhost/HelloServer", obj);
	
		    System.out.println("HelloServer bound in registry");
		} catch (Exception e) {
		    System.out.println("HelloImpl err: " + e.getMessage());
		    e.printStackTrace();
		}
	    }
	}

Implement a remote interface

In the Java programming language, when a class declares that it implements an interface, a contract is formed between the class and the compiler. By entering into this contract, the class is promising that it will provide method bodies, or definitions, for each of the method signatures declared in that interface. Interface methods are implicitly public and abstract, so if the implementation class doesn't fulfill its contract, it becomes by definition an abstract class, and the compiler will point out this fact if the class was not declared abstract.

The implementation class in this example is examples.hello.HelloImpl. The implementation class declares which remote interface(s) it is implementing. Here is the HelloImpl class declaration: 

	public class HelloImpl extends UnicastRemoteObject
	    implements Hello {
As a convenience, the implementation class can extend a remote class, which in this example is java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject. By extending UnicastRemoteObject, the HelloImpl class can be used to create a remote object that: If you want a remote object that can be activated (created) when a client requests it, rather than running all the time, after you finish this tutorial, you can take a look at the RMI Activation tutorial. Also, you can learn about how to use your own communication protocol, rather than the TCP sockets that RMI uses by default, in the tutorial on Using a Custom RMI Socket Factory.

Define the constructor for the remote object

The constructor for a remote class provides the same functionality as the constructor for a non-remote class: it initializes the variables of each newly created instance of the class, and returns an instance of the class to the program which called the constructor.

In addition, the remote object instance will need to be "exported". Exporting a remote object makes it available to accept incoming remote method requests, by listening for incoming calls to the remote object on an anonymous port. When you extend java.rmi.server.UnicastRemoteObject or java.rmi.activation.Activatable, your class will be exported automatically upon creation.

If you choose to extend a remote object from any class other than UnicastRemoteObject or Activatable, you will need to explicitly export the remote object by calling either the UnicastRemoteObject.exportObject method or the Activatable.exportObject method from your class's constructor (or another initialization method, as appropriate).

Because the object export could potentially throw a java.rmi.RemoteException, you must define a constructor that throws a RemoteException, even if the constructor does nothing else. If you forget the constructor, javac will produce the following error message: 

	HelloImpl.java:13: Exception java.rmi.RemoteException must be caught, or it must be
        declared in the throws clause of this method. 
                super(); 
                     ^ 
        1 error
To review: The implementation class for a remote object needs to: Here is the constructor for the examples.hello.HelloImpl class: 
    public HelloImpl() throws RemoteException { 
	super(); 
    }
Note the following:

If you are interested in why java.rmi.RemoteException is a checked exception rather than runtime exception, please refer to the archives of the rmi-users email list:

http://archives.java.sun.com/archives/rmi-users.html

Although the call to the superclass's no-argument constructor, super(), occurs by default (even if omitted), it is included in this example to make clear the fact that the Java virtual machine (JVM) constructs the superclass before the class.

Provide an implementation for each remote method

The implementation class for a remote object contains the code that implements each of the remote methods specified in the remote interface. For example, here is the implementation for the sayHello method, which returns the string "Hello World!" to the caller: 
    public String sayHello() throws RemoteException {
	return "Hello World!";
    }
Arguments to, or return values from, remote methods can be any data type for the Java platform, including objects, as long as those objects implement the interface java.io.Serializable. Most of the core classes in java.lang and java.util implement the Serializable interface. In RMI: A class can define methods not specified in the remote interface, but those methods can only be invoked within the virtual machine running the service and cannot be invoked remotely.

Create and install a security manager

The main method of the server first needs to create and install a security manager: either the RMISecurityManager or one that you have defined yourself. For example: 
if (System.getSecurityManager() == null) {

        System.setSecurityManager(new RMISecurityManager());
}
A security manager needs to be running so that it can guarantee that the classes that get loaded do not perform operations that they are not allowed to perform. If no security manager is specified no class loading, by RMI clients or servers, is allowed, aside from what can be found in the local CLASSPATH. In this example, a security manager is not installed in the client code because applets use the security manager already installed in the client browser. If the client were an application rather than an applet, however, you would need to use the same procedure as is used above to install a security manager in the client. A security manager is required in any JVM that needs to download code, and RMI clients need to download RMI stubs (as well as any other custom classes or interfaces needed to communicate with the RMI server).

Create one or more instances of a remote object

The main method of the server needs to create one or more instances of the remote object implementation which provides the service. For example: 
HelloImpl obj = new HelloImpl();
The constructor exports the remote object, which means that once created, the remote object is ready to accept incoming calls.

Register the remote object

For a caller (client, peer, or applet) to be able to invoke a method on a remote object, that caller must first obtain a reference to the remote object.

For bootstrapping, the RMI system provides a remote object registry that allows you to bind a URL-formatted name of the form "//host/objectname" to the remote object, where objectname is a simple string name.

The RMI registry is a simple server-side name service that allows remote clients to get a reference to a remote object. It is typically used only to locate the first remote object an RMI client needs to talk to. Then that first object would in turn provide application-specific support for finding other objects.

For example, the reference can be obtained as a parameter to, or a return value from, another remote method call. For a discussion on how this works, please take a look at Applying the Factory Pattern to RMI.

Once a remote object is registered on the server, callers can look up the object by name, obtain a remote object reference, and then remotely invoke methods on the object.

For example, the following code binds the name "HelloServer" to a reference for the remote object:

Naming.rebind("//myhost/HelloServer", obj);
Note the following about the arguments to the rebind method call: For security reasons, an application can bind or unbind only to a registry running on the same host. This prevents a client from removing or overwriting any of the entries in a server's remote registry. A lookup, however, can be done from any host.

Write a client program that uses the remote service

The applet in this example remotely invokes the sayHello method in order to get the string "Hello World!" to display when the applet runs. Here is the code for the applet: 

package examples.hello;

import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.rmi.Naming;
import java.rmi.RemoteException;

public class HelloApplet extends Applet { 

    String message = "blank"; 
         
    // "obj" is the identifier that we'll use to refer 
    // to the remote object that implements the "Hello" 
    // interface 
    Hello obj = null; 

    public void init() { 
        try { 
            obj = (Hello)Naming.lookup("//" + 
                getCodeBase().getHost() + "/HelloServer"); 
            message = obj.sayHello(); 
        } catch (Exception e) { 
            System.out.println("HelloApplet exception: " + e.getMessage()); 
            e.printStackTrace(); 
        } 
    } 

    public void paint(Graphics g) { 
        g.drawString(message, 25, 50); 
    } 
}
  1. First, the applet gets a reference to the remote object implementation (advertised as "HelloServer") from the server host's rmiregistry. Like the Naming.rebind method, the Naming.lookup method takes a URL-formatted java.lang.String. In this example, the applet constructs the URL string by using the getCodeBase method in conjunction with the getHost method. Naming.lookup takes care of the following tasks:

  2. The applet invokes the remote sayHello method on the server's remote object

  3. The applet invokes the paint method, causing the string "Hello World!" to be displayed in the drawing area of the applet.
The URL-formatted string that is passed as a parameter to the Naming.lookup method must include the server's hostname. Otherwise, the applet's lookup attempt will default to the client, and the AppletSecurityManager will throw an exception because the applet cannot access the local system, but is instead limited to only communicating with the applet's host.

Here is the HTML code for the web page that references the Hello World applet: 

	<HTML>
	<title>Hello World</title>
	<center> <h1>Hello World</h1> </center>
	<applet codebase="myclasses/" 
	        code="examples.hello.HelloApplet" 
	        width=500 height=120>
	</applet>
	</HTML>
Note the following:

Compile and Deploy Class Files and HTML Files

The source code for this example is now complete and the $HOME/mysrc/examples/hello directory has four files: In this section, you compile the .java source files to create .class files. You then run the rmic compiler to create stubs and skeletons. A stub is a client-side proxy for a remote object which forwards RMI calls to the server-side dispatcher, which in turn forwards the call to the actual remote object implementation.

When you use the javac and rmic compilers, you must specify where the resulting class files should reside. For applets, all files should be in the applet's codebase directory. For our example, this directory is $HOME/public_html/myclasses.

Some web servers allow accessing a user's public_html directory via an HTTP URL constructed as "http://host/~username/". If your web server does not support this convention, you could use a file URL of the form "file:/home/username/public_html" for testing, but this approach will limit you to communicating between a client and server that have access to the same physical file system. As an alternative, you can use an HTTP URL by setting up a minimal web server on your system; we have one available for download here.

There are four tasks to complete in this section:

  1. Compile the source files
  2. Use rmic to generate stubs and skeletons
  3. Move the HTML file to the deployment directory
  4. Set paths for runtime

Compile the source files

Make sure that the deployment directory $HOME/public_html/myclasses and the development directory $HOME/mysrc/examples/hello are each accessible through the local CLASSPATH on the development machine before attempting to compile.

To compile the source files, run the javac command as follows:

javac  -d  $HOME/public_html/myclasses Hello.java  HelloImpl.java  HelloApplet.java

This command creates the directory examples/hello (if it does not already exist) in the directory $HOME/public_html/myclasses. The command then writes to that directory the files Hello.class, HelloImpl.class, and HelloApplet.class. These are the remote interface, the implementation, and the applet respectively. For an explanation of javac options, you can refer to the Solaris javac manual page or the Windows javac manual page.

Use rmic to generate skeletons and/or stubs

To create stub and skeleton files, run the rmic compiler on the fully-qualified package names of compiled class files that contain remote object implementations, like my.package.MyImpl. The rmic command takes one or more class names as an argument and produces class files of the form MyImpl_Skel.class and MyImpl_Stub.class.

By default, in the Java 2 SDK, v1.2 and later, rmic runs with the -vcompat flag on, which produces stubs and skeletons that support access to:

  1. Unicast (not Activatable) remote objects from 1.1 clients and
  2. All types of remote objects from 1.2 (and later) clients
If you will never need support for 1.1 clients, rmic can be run with the -v1.2 option. For an explanation of rmic options, you can refer to the Solaris rmic  manual page or the Windows rmic manual page.

For example, to create the stub and skeleton for the HelloImpl remote object implementation, run rmic like this:

rmic  -d  $HOME/public_html/myclasses  examples.hello.HelloImpl

The "-d" option indicates the root directory in which to place the compiled stub and skeleton class files. So the preceding command creates the following files in the directory $HOME/public_html/myclasses/examples/hello:

The generated stub class implements exactly the same set of remote interfaces as the remote object itself. This means that a client can use the Java programming language's built-in operators for casting and type checking. It also means that remote objects written for the Java platform support true object-oriented polymorphism.

Move the HTML file to the deployment directory

To make the web page that references the applet visible to clients, the hello.html file must be moved from the development directory to the applet's codebase directory. For example:

mv  $HOME/mysrc/examples/hello/hello.html  $HOME/public_html/

Set paths for runtime

Make sure that the $HOME/public_html/myclasses directory is available through the server's local CLASSPATH when you run the HelloImpl server.

Start the RMI registry, server, and applet

There are three tasks to complete in this section:
  1. Start the RMI registry
  2. Start the server
  3. Run the applet

Start the RMI registry

The RMI registry is a simple server-side name server that allows remote clients to get a reference to a remote object. Typically, it is used only to locate the first remote object an application needs to talk to. Then that object in turn would provide application-specific support for finding other objects.

Note: Before you start the rmiregistry, you must make sure that the shell or window in which you will run the registry either has no CLASSPATH set or has a CLASSPATH that does not include the path to any classes that you want downloaded to your client, including the stubs for your remote object implementation classes.

If you start the rmiregistry, and it can find your stub classes in its CLASSPATH, it will ignore the server's java.rmi.server.codebase property, and as a result, your client(s) will not be able to download the stub code for your remote object. For an explanation of how code downloading works in RMI, please take a look at the tutorial on Dynamic code downloading using RMI.

To start the registry on the server, execute the rmiregistry command. This command produces no output and is typically run in the background. For more on the rmiregistry, you can refer to the Solaris rmiregistry manual page or the Windows rmiregistry manual page.

For example, in the Solaris operating environment: 

rmiregistry &

For example, on Microsoft Windows 95 systems: 

start rmiregistry

(Use javaw if start is not available.)

By default, the registry runs on port 1099. To start the registry on a different port, specify the port number from the command line. For example, to start the registry on port 2001 on a Microsoft Windows NT system: 

start rmiregistry 2001

If the registry is running on a port other than 1099, you'll need to specify the port number in the name handed to the URL-based methods of the java.rmi.Naming class when making calls to the registry. For example, if the registry is running on port 2001 in this example, the call required to bind the name "HelloServer" to the remote object reference would be: 

Naming.rebind("//myhost:2001/HelloServer", obj);

You must stop and restart the registry any time you modify a remote interface or use modified/additional remote interfaces in a remote object implementation. Otherwise, the type of the object reference bound in the registry will not match the modified class.

Start the server

When starting the server, the java.rmi.server.codebase property must be specified, so that the stub class can be dynamically downloaded to the registry and then to the client. Run the server, setting the codebase property to be the location of the implementation stubs. Because the codebase property in this example references a directory, make sure that any other classes that may need to be downloaded have also been installed in the directory referenced by java.rmi.server.codebase. For other command-line examples of codebase settings, please take a look at the tutorial on Dynamic code downloading using RMI.

For explanations of each of the java.rmi.server properties, click here. To see all the available java.rmi.activation properties, click here. For an explanation of java options, you can refer to the Solaris java manual page or the Windows java manual page. If you have problems running the example code, please take a look at the RMI and Serialization FAQ.

Note: A stub class is dynamically downloaded to a client's virtual machine only when the class is not already available locally and the java.rmi.server.codebase property has been set properly to specify where the class files are located on the server.

There are four things that need to go on the same command line: the "java" command, followed by two property name=value pairs (for the codebase property, note that there are no spaces from the "-D" all the way though the last "/") and then the fully-qualified package name of the server program. There should be a space just after the word "java", between the two properties, and just before the word "examples" (which is very hard to see when you view this as text, in a browser, or on paper). The following command shows how to start the HelloImpl server, specifying the java.rmi.server.codebase and java.security.policy properties:

java  -Djava.rmi.server.codebase=http://myhost/~myusrname/myclasses/  -Djava.security.policy=$HOME/mysrc/policy  examples.hello.HelloImpl

In order to run this code on your system, you'll need to change the location of the policy file to be the location of the directory on your system, where you've installed the example source code.

Note: In this example, for simplicity, we will use a policy file that gives global permission to anyone from anywhere. Do not use this policy file in a production environment. For more information on how to properly open up permissions using a java.security.policy file, please refer to to the following documents:

The codebase property will be resolved to a URL, so it must have the form of "http://aHost/somesource/" or "file:/myDirectory/location/" or, due to the requirements of some operating systems, "file:///myDirectory/location/" (three slashes after the "file:").

Please note that each of the URL strings above has a trailing "/". The trailing slash is a requirement for the URL set by the java.rmi.server.codebase property, so the implementation can resolve (find) your class definition(s) properly.

If you forget the trailing slash on the codebase property, or if the class files can't be located at the source (they aren't really being made available for download) or if you misspell the property name, you'll get thrown a java.lang.ClassNotFoundException. This exception will be thrown when you try to bind your remote object to the rmiregistry, or when the first client attempts to access that object's stub. If the latter case occurs, you have another problem as well because the rmiregistry was finding the stubs in its CLASSPATH.

The output should look like this:

HelloServer bound in registry

Run the applet

Once the registry and server are running, the applet can be run. An applet is run by loading its web page into a browser or appletviewer, as shown here: 
appletviewer http://myhost/~myusrname/hello.html &
After running the appletviewer, you will see output similar to the following on your display:
Screenshot of the running Hello World applet.

*As used on this web site, the terms "Java virtual machine" or "JVM" mean a virtual machine for the Java platform.

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