1rmid(1)                     General Commands Manual                    rmid(1)
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3
4

Name

6       rmid - The Java RMI Activation System Daemon
7
8       rmid starts the activation system daemon that allows objects to be reg‐
9       istered and activated in a virtual machine (VM).
10

SYNOPSIS

12       rmid [options]
13
14

DESCRIPTION

16       The rmid tool starts the activation system daemon. The activation  sys‐
17       tem  daemon  must  be  started before activatable objects can be either
18       registered with the activation system or activated in a VM. See the
19       Java RMI Specification @
20       http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/platform/rmi/spec/rmiTOC.html and
21       Activation tutorials @
22       http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/rmi/activa
23       tion/overview.html for details on how to write programs that use acti‐
24       vatable remote objects.
25
26       The daemon can be started by executing the rmid command, and specifying
27       a security policy file, as follows:
28
29           rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy
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31
32       Note: When running Sun's implementation of rmid, by default you will
33       need to specify a security policy file so that rmid can verify whether
34       or not the information in each ActivationGroupDesc is allowed to be
35       used to launch a VM for an activation group. Specifically, the command
36       and options specified by the CommandEnvironment and any Properties
37       passed to an ActivationGroupDesc's constructor must now be explicitly
38       allowed in the security policy file for rmid. The value of the
39       sun.rmi.activation.execPolicy property dictates the policy that rmid
40       uses to determine whether or not the information in an Activation‐
41       GroupDesc may be used to launch a VM for an activation group.
42
43       Executing rmid by default
44
45          o starts the Activator and an internal registry on the default port,
46            1098, and
47
48          o binds an ActivationSystem to the name java.rmi.activation.Activa‐
49            tionSystem in this internal registry.
50
51
52       To specify an alternate port for the registry, you must specify the
53       -port option when starting up rmid. For example,
54
55           rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy -port 1099
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57
58       starts the activation system daemon and a registry on the registry's
59       default port, 1099.
60
61   Starting rmid from inetd/xinetd
62       An alternative to starting rmid from the command line is to configure
63       inetd (Solaris) or xinetd (Linux) to start rmid on demand.
64
65       When rmid starts up, it attempts to obtain an inherited channel (inher‐
66       ited from inetd/xinetd) by invoking the System.inheritedChannel method.
67       If the inherited channel is null or not an instance of java.nio.chan‐
68       nels.ServerSocketChannel, then rmid assumes that it was not started by
69       inetd/xinetd, and it starts up as described above.
70
71       If the inherited channel is a ServerSocketChannel instance, then rmid
72       uses the java.net.ServerSocket obtained from the ServerSocketChannel as
73       the server socket that accepts requests for the remote objects it
74       exports, namely the registry in which the java.rmi.activation.Activa‐
75       tionSystem is bound and the java.rmi.activation.Activator remote
76       object. In this mode, rmid behaves the same as when it is started from
77       the command line, except:
78
79          o Output printed to System.err is redirected to a file. This file is
80            located in the directory specified by the java.io.tmpdir system
81            property (typically /var/tmp or /tmp) with the prefix "rmid-err"
82            and the suffix "tmp".
83
84          o The -port option is disallowed. If this option is specified, rmid
85            will exit with an error message.
86
87          o The -log option is required. If this option is not specified, rmid
88            will exit with an error message.
89
90
91       See the man pages for inetd (Solaris) or xinetd (Linux) for details on
92       how to configure services to be started on demand.
93

OPTIONS

95          -C<someCommandLineOption>
96             Specifies an option that is passed as a command-line argument to
97             each child process (activation group) of rmid when that process
98             is created. For example, you could pass a property to each vir‐
99             tual machine spawned by the activation system daemon:
100                 rmid -C-Dsome.property=value
101             This ability to pass command-line arguments to child processes
102             can be useful for debugging. For example, the following command:
103                 rmid -C-Djava.rmi.server.logCalls=true
104             will enable server-call logging in all child VMs.
105
106          -J<someCommandLineOption>
107             Specifies an option that is passed to the java interpreter run‐
108             ning rmid. For example, to specify that rmid use a policy file
109             named rmid.policy, the -J option can be used to define the
110             java.security.policy property on rmid's command line, for exam‐
111             ple:
112                 rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy
113
114          -J-Dsun.rmi.activation.execPolicy=<policy>
115             Specifies the policy that rmid employs to check commands and com‐
116             mand-line options used to launch the VM in which an activation
117             group runs. Please note that this option exists only in Sun's
118             implementation of the Java RMI activation daemon. If this prop‐
119             erty is not specified on the command line, the result is the same
120             as if -J-Dsun.rmi.activation.execPolicy=default were specified.
121             The possible values of <policy> can be default, <policyClass‐
122             Name>, or none:
123
124             o default (or if this property is unspecified)
125
126             The default execPolicy allows rmid to execute commands with spe‐
127             cific command-line options only if rmid has been granted permis‐
128             sion to execute those commands and options in the security policy
129             file that rmid uses. Only the default activation group implemen‐
130             tation can be used with the default execution policy.
131
132             rmid launches a VM for an activation group using the information
133             in the group's registered activation group descriptor, an Activa‐
134             tionGroupDesc. The group descriptor specifies an optional Activa‐
135             tionGroupDesc.CommandEnvironment which includes the command to
136             execute to start the activation group as well as any command line
137             options to be added to the command line. By default, rmid uses
138             the java command found in java.home. The group descriptor also
139             contains properties overrides that are added to the command line
140             as options defined as:
141                 -D<property>=<value>
142
143             The permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecPermission is used to grant
144             rmid permission to execute a command, specified in the group
145             descriptor's CommandEnvironment to launch an activation group.
146             The permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission is used to
147             allow rmid to use command-line options, specified as properties
148             overrides in the group descriptor or as options in the CommandEn‐
149             vironment, when launching the activation group.
150
151             When granting rmid permission to execute various commands and
152             options, the permissions ExecPermission and ExecOptionPermission
153             need to be granted universally (i.e., granted to all code
154             sources).
155
156                ExecPermission
157                   The ExecPermission class represents permission for rmid to
158                   execute a specific command to launch an activation group.
159
160                Syntax
161                The name of an ExecPermission is the path name of a command to
162                grant rmid permission to execute. A path name that ends in
163                "/*" indicates all the files contained in that directory
164                (where "/" is the file-separator character, File.separator‐
165                Char). A path name that ends with "/-" indicates all files and
166                subdirectories contained in that directory (recursively). A
167                path name consisting of the special token "<<ALL FILES>>"
168                matches any file.
169
170                Note: A path name consisting of a single "*" indicates all the
171                files in the current directory, while a path name consisting
172                of a single "-" indicates all the files in the current direc‐
173                tory and (recursively) all files and subdirectories contained
174                in the current directory.
175
176                ExecOptionPermission
177                   The ExecOptionPermission class represents permission for
178                   rmid to use a specific command-line option when launching
179                   an activation group. The name of an ExecOptionPermission is
180                   the value of a command line option.
181
182                Syntax
183                Options support a limited wildcard scheme. An asterisk signi‐
184                fies a wildcard match, and it may appear as the option name
185                itself (i.e., it matches any option), or an asterisk may
186                appear at the end of the option name only if the asterisk fol‐
187                lows either a "." or "=".
188
189                For example: "*" or "-Dfoo.*" or "-Da.b.c=*" is valid, "*foo"
190                or "-Da*b" or "ab*" is not.
191
192                Policy file for rmid
193                   When granting rmid permission to execute various commands
194                   and options, the permissions ExecPermission and ExecOption‐
195                   Permission need to be granted universally (i.e., granted to
196                   all code sources). It is safe to grant these permissions
197                   universally because only rmid checks these permissions.
198
199                An example policy file that grants various execute permissions
200                to rmid is:
201                grant {
202                    permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecPermission
203                        "/files/apps/java/jdk1.7.0/solaris/bin/java";
204
205                    permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecPermission
206                        "/files/apps/rmidcmds/*";
207
208                    permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission
209                        "-Djava.security.policy=/files/policies/group.policy";
210
211                    permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission
212                        "-Djava.security.debug=*";
213
214                    permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission
215                        "-Dsun.rmi.*";
216                };
217                The first permission granted allow rmid to execute the 1.7.0
218                version of the java command, specified by its explicit path
219                name. Note that by default, the version of the java command
220                found in java.home is used (the same one that rmid uses), and
221                does not need to be specified in the policy file. The second
222                permission allows rmid to execute any command in the directory
223                /files/apps/rmidcmds.
224
225                The third permission granted, an ExecOptionPermission, allows
226                rmid to launch an activation group that defines the security
227                policy file to be /files/policies/group.policy. The next per‐
228                mission allows the java.security.debug property to be used by
229                an activation group. The last permission allows any property
230                in the sun.rmi property name hierarchy to be used by activa‐
231                tion groups.
232
233                To start rmid with a policy file, the java.security.policy
234                property needs to be specified on rmid's command line, for
235                example:
236
237                rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy
238
239             o <policyClassName>
240
241             If the default behavior is not flexible enough, an administrator
242             can provide, when starting rmid, the name of a class whose check‐
243             ExecCommand method is executed in order to check commands to be
244             executed by rmid.
245
246             The policyClassName specifies a public class with a public,
247             no-argument constructor and an implementation of the following
248             checkExecCommand method:
249                 public void checkExecCommand(ActivationGroupDesc desc,
250                                              String[] command)
251                     throws SecurityException;
252             Before launching an activation group, rmid calls the policy's
253             checkExecCommand method, passing it the activation group descrip‐
254             tor and an array containing the complete command to launch the
255             activation group. If the checkExecCommand throws a SecurityExcep‐
256             tion, rmid will not launch the activation group and an Activa‐
257             tionException will be thrown to the caller attempting to activate
258             the object.
259
260             o none
261
262             If the sun.rmi.activation.execPolicy property value is "none",
263             then rmid will not perform any validation of commands to launch
264             activation groups.
265
266          -log dir
267             Specifies the name of the directory the activation system daemon
268             uses to write its database and associated information. The log
269             directory defaults to creating a directory, log, in the directory
270             in which the rmid command was executed.
271
272          -port port
273             Specifies the port rmid's registry uses. The activation system
274             daemon binds the ActivationSystem, with the name java.rmi.activa‐
275             tion.ActivationSystem, in this registry. Thus, the ActivationSys‐
276             tem on the local machine can be obtained using the following Nam‐
277             ing.lookup method call:
278                 import java.rmi.*;
279                 import java.rmi.activation.*;
280
281                 ActivationSystem system; system = (ActivationSystem)
282                 Naming.lookup("//:port/java.rmi.activation.ActivationSystem");
283
284          -stop
285             Stops the current invocation of rmid, for a port specified by the
286             -port option. If no port is specified, it will stop the rmid run‐
287             ning on port 1098.
288
289

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

291          CLASSPATH
292             Used to provide the system a path to user-defined classes. Direc‐
293             tories are separated by colons. For example:
294                 .:/usr/local/java/classes
295
296

SEE ALSO

298       rmic(1), CLASSPATH @
299       http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/tools/index.html#class‐
300       path, java(1)
301
302                                  16 Mar 2012                          rmid(1)
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