How to setup JNDI for Glassfish 3.1.2 for a stand-alone client?

Question

I try to connect from a stand-alone swing client (running in a separate JVM on the client machine) to the Glassfish server.

I currently use the following settings from Netbeans and everything works just fine:

System.setProperty("java.naming.factory.initial", "com.sun.enterprise.naming.SerialInitContextFactory");
System.setProperty("java.naming.factory.url.pkgs", "com.sun.enterprise.naming");
System.setProperty("java.naming.factory.state", "com.sun.corba.ee.impl.presentation.rmi.JNDIStateFactoryImpl");
System.setProperty("org.omg.CORBA.ORBInitialHost", "192.168.1.3");
System.setProperty("org.omg.CORBA.ORBInitialPort", "3700");
InitialContext context = new InitialContext();

But when I try to start the compiled client from the console by typing "java -jar client.jar" I get the following error:

D:\workspace\gf-client\dist>java -jar gf-client.jar
17.08.2012 11:07:38 ch.client.core.ServerContext getInitialContext SCHWERWIEGEND: Cannot instantiate class: com.sun.enterprise.naming.SerialInitContextFactory javax.naming.NoInitialContextException: Cannot instantiate class: com.sun.enterprise.naming.SerialInitContextFactory [Root exception is java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.enterprise.naming.SerialInitContextFactory]
        at javax.naming.spi.NamingManager.getInitialContext(Unknown Source)
        at javax.naming.InitialContext.getDefaultInitCtx(Unknown Source)
        at javax.naming.InitialContext.init(Unknown Source)
        at javax.naming.InitialContext.<init>(Unknown Source)
        at ch.lawsuite.core.ServerContext.getInitialContext(ServerContext.java:2 7)
        at ch.client.core.remote.Facades.initialize(Facades.java:68)
        at ch.client.core.Client.main(Client.java:57) Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.enterprise.naming.SerialIni tContextFactory
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
        at java.lang.Class.forName(Unknown Source)
        at com.sun.naming.internal.VersionHelper12.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        ... 7 more Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
        at ch.client.core.remote.Facades.initialize(Facades.java:69)
        at ch.client.core.Client.main(Client.java:57)

Somebody any helpful idea?

• Does the JVM miss any libs? Which ones? (it works from netbeans and all dependent libs are packed to the compiled jar-file (at least I think so..))
• Are there alternative serial context factories for Glassfish ?

Many thanks for your help in advance!

Answer 1

A point to clear about Remote EJB interfaces

You want a Remote EJB interface when your client application lives on one JVM different than the one hosting the EJB module. In other words:

• The client application lives on one JVM and the EJB module is deployed on another JVM on the same machine

OR

• The client application lives on one JVM and the EJB module is deployed on another JVM on a remote machine.

For simplicity sake

Lets consider the first scenario where both of the client app and the EJB module live on different JVMs on the very same machine.

1. Make sure you have 2 JDKs installed on your machine.
2. Deploy the EJB module in a Glassfish installation pointing to one JDK (JVM). We can agree to install Glassfish in "C:/glassfish3/"
3. According to the documantation in this link. Add to your client application classpath the file "gf-client.jar" as an external library from within the installation directory (i.e. C:/glassfish3/glassfish/lib/gf-client.jar) rather than copying it.
4. Also add to your client application classpath the file remote_interface.jar includes the Remote business interface of your EJB.
5. Run the SE (stand alone) client application on the second JDK (JVM)

An important tip about the client

As per the documentation, stand-alone java clients must explicitly use the global JNDI name to lookup the Remote EJB. Also, Glassfish does not need any properties instialization to invoke the InitialContext() constructor. Thus the client application can invoke the EJB using the following snippet:

InitialContext context = new InitialContext();
_RemoteEjbInterface ejbBean = (_RemoteEjbInterface) context.lookup("java:global/DeployedEJBAppName/EjbImplClass!com.sam._RemoteEjbInterface");

In case your SE stand alone client application is a maven one then you need to

1. Account for the above step (3) by adding this entry to your client app POM:

   <dependency>
       <groupId>org.glassfish.main.appclient.client</groupId>
       <artifactId>gf-client</artifactId>
       <version>3.1.2</version>
       <scope>system</scope>
       <systemPath>C:/glassfish3/glassfish/lib/gf-client.jar</systemPath>
   </dependency>
   

2. Account for the above step (4) by a POM dependency pointing to you remote_interface.jar in your local maven repo assuming you installed it. Follow this to know how.

Another documentation to reference is here