rmid(1)                    OpenBSD Reference Manual                    rmid(1)



NAME
       rmid - The Java RMI Activation System Daemon

       rmid starts the activation system daemon that allows objects to be
       registered and activated in a virtual machine (VM).

SYNOPSIS
       rmid [options]


DESCRIPTION
       The rmid tool starts the activation system daemon. The activation
       system daemon must be started before activatable objects can be either
       registered with the activation system or activated in a VM. See the
       Java RMI Specification @
       http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/platform/rmi/spec/rmitoc.html and
       Activation tutorials @
       http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/rmi/activation/overview.html
       for details on how to write programs that use activatable remote
       objects.

       The daemon can be started by executing the rmid command, and specifying
       a security policy file, as follows:

           rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy


       Note: When running Sun's implementation of rmid, by default you will
       need to specify a security policy file so that rmid can verify whether
       or not the information in each ActivationGroupDesc is allowed to be
       used to launch a VM for an activation group. Specifically, the command
       and options specified by the CommandEnvironment and any Properties
       passed to an ActivationGroupDesc's constructor must now be explicitly
       allowed in the security policy file for rmid. The value of the
       sun.rmi.activation.execPolicy property dictates the policy that rmid
       uses to determine whether or not the information in an
       ActivationGroupDesc may be used to launch a VM for an activation group.

       Executing rmid by default

          * starts the Activator and an internal registry on the default port,
            1098, and

          * binds an ActivationSystem to the name
            java.rmi.activation.ActivationSystem in this internal registry.


       To specify an alternate port for the registry, you must specify the
       -port option when starting up rmid. For example,

           rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy -port 1099


       starts the activation system daemon and a registry on the registry's
       default port, 1099.

   Starting rmid from
       inetd/xinetd

       An alternative to starting rmid from the command line is to configure
       inetd (Solaris) or xinetd (Bsd) to start rmid on demand.

       When rmid starts up, it attempts to obtain an inherited channel
       (inherited from inetd/xinetd) by invoking the System.inheritedChannel
       method. If the inherited channel is null or not an instance of
       java.nio.channels.ServerSocketChannel, then rmid assumes that it was
       not started by inetd/xinetd, and it starts up as described above.

       If the inherited channel is a ServerSocketChannel instance, then rmid
       uses the java.net.ServerSocket obtained from the ServerSocketChannel as
       the server socket that accepts requests for the remote objects it
       exports, namely the registry in which the
       java.rmi.activation.ActivationSystem is bound and the
       java.rmi.activation.Activator remote object. In this mode, rmid behaves
       the same as when it is started from the command line, except:

          * Output printed to System.err is redirected to a file. This file is
            located in the directory specified by the java.io.tmpdir system
            property (typically /var/tmp or /tmp) with the prefix "rmid-err"
            and the suffix "tmp".

          * The -port option is disallowed. If this option is specified, rmid
            will exit with an error message.

          * The -log option is required. If this option is not specified, rmid
            will exit with an error message.


       See the man pages for inetd (Solaris) or xinetd (Bsd) for details on
       how to configure services to be started on demand.

OPTIONS
       -C<someCommandLineOption>
          Specifies an option that is passed as a command-line argument to
          each child process (activation group) of rmid when that process is
          created. For example, you could pass a property to each virtual
          machine spawned by the activation system daemon:
              rmid -C-Dsome.property=value
          This ability to pass command-line arguments to child processes can
          be useful for debugging. For example, the following command:
              rmid -C-Djava.rmi.server.logCalls=true
          will enable server-call logging in all child VMs.

       -J<someCommandLineOption>
          Specifies an option that is passed to the java interpreter running
          rmid. For example, to specify that rmid use a policy file named
          rmid.policy, the -J option can be used to define the
          java.security.policy property on rmid's command line, for example:
              rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy


       -J-Dsun.rmi.activation.execPolicy=<policy>
          Specifies the policy that rmid employs to check commands and
          command-line options used to launch the VM in which an activation
          group runs. Please note that this option exists only in Sun's
          implementation of the Java RMI activation daemon. If this property
          is not specified on the command line, the result is the same as if
          -J-Dsun.rmi.activation.execPolicy=default were specified. The
          possible values of <policy> can be default, <policyClassName>, or
          none:

          * default (or if this property is unspecified)

          The default execPolicy allows rmid to execute commands with specific
          command-line options only if rmid has been granted permission to
          execute those commands and options in the security policy file that
          rmid uses. Only the default activation group implementation can be
          used with the default execution policy.

          rmid launches a VM for an activation group using the information in
          the group's registered activation group descriptor, an
          ActivationGroupDesc. The group descriptor specifies an optional
          ActivationGroupDesc.CommandEnvironment which includes the command to
          execute to start the activation group as well as any command line
          options to be added to the command line. By default, rmid uses the
          java command found in java.home. The group descriptor also contains
          properties overrides that are added to the command line as options
          defined as:
              -D<property>=<value>

          The permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecPermission is used to grant rmid
          permission to execute a command, specified in the group descriptor's
          CommandEnvironment to launch an activation group. The permission
          com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission is used to allow rmid to use
          command-line options, specified as properties overrides in the group
          descriptor or as options in the CommandEnvironment, when launching
          the activation group.

          When granting rmid permission to execute various commands and
          options, the permissions ExecPermission and ExecOptionPermission
          need to be granted universally (i.e., granted to all code sources).

          ExecPermission
             The ExecPermission class represents permission for rmid to
             execute a specific command to launch an activation group.

          Syntax
          The name of an ExecPermission is the path name of a command to grant
          rmid permission to execute. A path name that ends in "/*" indicates
          all the files contained in that directory (where "/" is the
          file-separator character, File.separatorChar). A path name that ends
          with "/-" indicates all files and subdirectories contained in that
          directory (recursively). A path name consisting of the special token
          "<<ALL FILES>>" matches any file.

          Note: A path name consisting of a single "*" indicates all the files
          in the current directory, while a path name consisting of a single
          "-" indicates all the files in the current directory and
          (recursively) all files and subdirectories contained in the current
          directory.

          ExecOptionPermission
             The ExecOptionPermission class represents permission for rmid to
             use a specific command-line option when launching an activation
             group. The name of an ExecOptionPermission is the value of a
             command line option.

          Syntax
          Options support a limited wildcard scheme. An asterisk signifies a
          wildcard match, and it may appear as the option name itself (i.e.,
          it matches any option), or an asterisk may appear at the end of the
          option name only if the asterisk follows either a "." or "=".

          For example: "*" or "-Dfoo.*" or "-Da.b.c=*" is valid, "*foo" or
          "-Da*b" or "ab*" is not.

          Policy file for
             rmid When granting rmid permission to execute various commands
             and options, the permissions ExecPermission and
             ExecOptionPermission need to be granted universally (i.e.,
             granted to all code sources). It is safe to grant these
             permissions universally because only rmid checks these
             permissions.

          An example policy file that grants various execute permissions to
          rmid is:
          grant {
              permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecPermission
                  "/files/apps/java/jdk1.2.2/solaris/bin/java";

              permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecPermission
                  "/files/apps/java/jdk1.2.2/solaris/bin/java_g";

              permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecPermission
                  "/files/apps/rmidcmds/*";

              permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission
                  "-Djava.security.policy=/files/policies/group.policy";

              permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission
                  "-Djava.security.debug=*";

              permission com.sun.rmi.rmid.ExecOptionPermission
                  "-Dsun.rmi.*";
          };
          The first two permissions granted allow rmid to execute the 1.2.2
          version of the java and java_g commands, specified by their explicit
          path names. Note that by default, the version of the java command
          found in java.home is used (the same one that rmid uses), and does
          not need to be specified in the policy file. The third permission
          allows rmid to execute any command in the directory
          /files/apps/rmidcmds.

          The fourth permission granted, an ExecOptionPermission, allows rmid
          to launch an activation group that defines the security policy file
          to be /files/policies/group.policy. The next permission allows the
          java.security.debug property to be used by an activation group. The
          last permission allows any property in the sun.rmi property name
          hierarchy to be used by activation groups.

          To start rmid with a policy file, the java.security.policy property
          needs to be specified on rmid's command line, for example:


             rmid -J-Djava.security.policy=rmid.policy

          *

          * <policyClassName>

          If the default behavior is not flexible enough, an administrator can
          provide, when starting rmid, the name of a class whose
          checkExecCommand method is executed in order to check commands to be
          executed by rmid.

          The policyClassName specifies a public class with a public,
          no-argument constructor and an implementation of the following
          checkExecCommand method:
              public void checkExecCommand(ActivationGroupDesc desc,
                                           String[] command)
                  throws SecurityException;
          Before launching an activation group, rmid calls the policy's
          checkExecCommand method, passing it the activation group descriptor
          and an array containing the complete command to launch the
          activation group. If the checkExecCommand throws a
          SecurityException, rmid will not launch the activation group and an
          ActivationException will be thrown to the caller attempting to
          activate the object.

          * none

          If the sun.rmi.activation.execPolicy property value is "none", then
          rmid will not perform any validation of commands to launch
          activation groups.

       -log dir
          Specifies the name of the directory the activation system daemon
          uses to write its database and associated information. The log
          directory defaults to creating a directory, log, in the directory in
          which the rmid command was executed.

       -port port
          Specifies the port rmid's registry uses. The activation system
          daemon binds the ActivationSystem, with the name
          java.rmi.activation.ActivationSystem, in this registry. Thus, the
          ActivationSystem on the local machine can be obtained using the
          following Naming.lookup method call:
              import java.rmi.*;
              import java.rmi.activation.*;

              ActivationSystem system; system = (ActivationSystem)
              Naming.lookup("//:port/java.rmi.activation.ActivationSystem");

       -stop
          Stops the current invocation of rmid, for a port specified by the
          -port option. If no port is specified, it will stop the rmid running
          on port 1098.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       CLASSPATH
          Used to provide the system a path to user-defined classes.
          Directories are separated by colons. For example:
              .:/usr/local/java/classes


SEE ALSO
       rmic, CLASSPATH, java

                                  05 Aug 2006                          rmid(1)
