Registry bind address flexibility

Name: rl43681 Date: 06/18/2003


A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
Using java.rmi.registry.LocateRegistry.createRegistry(), one can only specify port, not which address to bind the registry to if multiple IP addresses/NICs are present on the system.

JUSTIFICATION :
A host has very often multiple IP addresses and it's desired to run a service like e.g. the Registry on a specified IP. In many cases one interface is for management/network internal purposes and the other interface is visible from the outside world and/or the corporate firewall.

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Bind-address flexibility when creating/exporting the RIM registry (actually should ALL services ending up making network connection be flexible with regards to IP, when the calling entity is not making the socket itself).
ACTUAL -
My RMI server and RMI client runs on different hosts. The client can reach the registry, but the host the registry indicates the the looked up object is running on, is not visible from the client (it's the "wrong" IP/NIC. Seems like the Registry just picks the first in the list (same order as ipconfig /all on a win 2000 system).

(Review ID: 186935)
======================================================================