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Features Specific to OpenFusion JacORB

PrismTech has added a number of valuable features to OpenFusion JacORB that are not available in the standard Open Source JacORB distribution. These features include:

• OpenFusion IMR

The new OpenFusion Implementation Repository (IMR) is used by OpenFusion JacORB to locate and activate CORBA object implementations. The new OpenFusion IMR was designed so that it can also be used to locate object implementations based on OpenFusion TAO or OpenFusion e*ORB. The OpenFusion IMR was designed to provde a single unifying IMR that can be used across OpenFusion ORBs. However, in this initial release of the OpenFusion IMR, support will only be provided for CORBA servers written with OpenFusion JacORB. The OpenFusion IMR provides a number of advanced features including:

• Load balancing between multiple server object instances. This feature can also be used to provide basic fail over between servers objects.
• Support is provided for fail over between IMR instances. Multiple OpenFusion IMR instances can be started, if one instance fails then any OpenFusion JacORB server object references registered with the first instance will be automatically re-registered with the second OpenFusion IMR instance and client requests will continue to be processed as normal.
• Support is provided for auto-activation of server objects. Any persistent object references registered with the OpenFusion IMR can be automatically started if they are not already running when the IMR receives a client request.
• Support for fail over between IMR instances across different network subnets. (Added JacORB 2.1.3+)
• Transparent corbaloc URLs

The jacorb.properties file now includes references to allow transparent corbaloc URLs for the OpenFusion CORBA Services.

• ThreadPools for connections

The jacorb.properties file now includes new properties to limit the thread used for client and server side connections. See the programming guide for more information on jacorb.connection.client.max_receptor_threads, jacorb.connection.server.max_idle_receptor_threads and jacorb.connection.server.max_receptor_threads.

• Shared threadPool for request processing

Initially jacorb provided a thread pool per POA. Using the new property "jacorb.poa.thread_pool_shared" allows one thread pool per JVM instance.

• IDL compiler improvement

Option added to IDL compiler that will generate toString() and equals() methods on generated stubs for Structs. (Added JacORB 2.1.3+)

• Slow ORB initialisation and high thread usage when using JSSE

Under certain platforms (e.g. J2ME CDC platforms) when the JSSE initializes it's random number generator it may spawn a large number of threads and/or ORB initialisation is slow.

OpenFusion JacORB comes with a plugin system to resolve this issue. An implementation of the org.jacorb.security.ssl.sun_jsse.JSRandom interface can initialise SecureRandom as required. Two examples are provided in the org.jacorb.security.ssl.sun_jsse package in the JacORB source code. (Added JacORB 2.1.3+)

• Server/client keep alive

The jacorb.properties file now includes new properties to allow servers and clients to be kept alive. See the programming guide for more information on jacorb.connection.server.keepalive and jacorb.connection.client.keepalive. (AddedJacORB 2.1.3+)

• Monitoring TCP and SSL connections.

The jacorb.properties file now includes new properties to allow a developer to create listeners to monitor TCP and SSL connections. The developer has to implement an interface (that uses the Java EventListener pattern) in order to receive notifications upon e.g. TCP connections, SSL sessions. See the programming guide for more information on JacORB Network Event Logging. (Added JacORB 2.1.3+)
TCPConnectionEvent and SSLSessionEvent extended to include a method to return the local IP. (Added JacORB 2.1.3.1+)

• SecureRandom initialisation.

To allow developers to plug-in their own java.security.SecureRandom initialisation when using SSL. See the programming guide for more information on jacorb.security.randomClassPlugin. (Added JacORB 2.1.3+)

• Additional information for threads.

A new property jacorb.enhanced_thread_name has been added to configure additional information for threads. Specifically, it adds connection endpoints and time (in milliseconds) that the thread started to the Thread name. See the programming guide for more information. (Added JacORB 2.1.3+)

• API change for SSLSessionEvent

Change to API for SSLSessionEvent to receive and provide cause of Exception. SSL logging also provides exception cause. (Added JacORB 2.1.3+)

• JacORB timeout properties to set in Notification Service scenarios:
  • A consumer attempts to connect to the Notification Service behind a badly configured firewall. Set jacorb.connection.client.connect_timeout to timeout the attempted connection.
  • A push_structured_event call to a consumer takes a long time. Set jacorb.connection.client.pending_reply_timeout to allow the reply to timeout.
  • A machine is powered down before a Notification Service client performs a disconnect call on a socket and the socket remains open. Set jacorb.connection.client.idle_timeout so that the connection will be closed.
• JacORB ImR and OpenFusion Name and Notification Service can be installed as a RPM (RedHat Package Manager) and integrated as Unix services.
  • A RPM called openfusion installs the distribution to the /opt/openfusion directory and an associated script called openfusion to the /etc/init.d directory to ensure that the services are run as Unix services on machine boot.
  • A service wrapper script called serviceWrapper.sh is installed with the RPM into the /opt/openfusion/bin directory. This script is responsible for starting the JacORB ImR and OpenFusion Services, detecting multiple start attempts, configuring a timeout and detect if a Service is already running. This script takes the following options:
    • [-t <timeout>] The timeout value that the script waits for a service to start. If not specified, it defaults to 180 seconds. The timeout value should be specified in seconds.
    • -start|-stop|-status A command to start, stop or get the status of the services.
    The -t parameter is optional. The ImR, Name and Notification Services are started and stopped sequentially by the -start or -stop option.
  • So, to start the services, you need to run /etc/init.d/openfusion -start (or reboot the machine) which calls onto the serviceWrapper.sh script with the -start option.If you want to configure the timeout value, edit the openfusion script to put -t <timeout> before -start.

    The openfusion script supports chkconfig and the services are active in levels 2,3,4,5. The script executes last in the boot sequence (or first when shutting down).

• JacORB IORMutator
  • An enhancement has been added to allow the developer to alter incoming and outgoing objects at a low level within the ORB. This is useful for scenarios where a user is running with legacy network elements which have multiple, identical IP address, for example.
  • Note that the IORMutator should be used with caution since it operates at the CDRStream level, which makes it easy to break the ORB and cause unpredictable behaviour.