Exposing a bean as RMI service to a non spring client

[jonathanztaub]

I've managed to do a successful lookup of a RMI service outside the Spring container. The service is implemented as a "regular" remote object in another JVM not in a Spring container.

When I tried to do the opposite, I ran into trouble:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassCastException: org.springframework.remoting.rmi.RmiInvocationWrap per_Stub

In order to be able to invoke remote methods in the client (not within a Spring container), I'd have to cast it to the interface.
However, that does not seem to work.
As far as I can conclude, RMI will be used just as the protocol for remote calls *between* 2 Spring containers. It cannot be used by a "regular" RMI client.

Is the above a correct observation?
Any insights and comments are most welcome.[/b]

[swisswheel]

Hi,

You're observations are mostly correct. If you have got a service interface, which does not fulfill the rmi rules (service interface extends java.rmi.Remote, every method throws a java.rmi.RemoteException and the rmic is runned with service implementation [only below jdk 1.5]) the remote calls will be tunneled through by using java refelction. This is made by class org.springframework.remoting.rmi.RmiInvocationWrap per, which has precomiled stub/skeletons in spring.jar.

If you're using a service interface which fulfills the rmi rules, the service will be exported on server side as "real" rmi service. So also on client side a "real" service can be accessed by using classes which fulfilling the rmi rules.

Cheers,
Martin