Maybe there are some misunderstanding somewhere... see below;
On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 3:35 AM, Peter<j...@zeus.net.au> wrote:
I'm currently only considering OSGi server -> OSGi client. Mick's
investigating all four options.
Ok, makes it a lot easier for me to follow.
Not expecting the client calling bundle to resolve everything, hence the
stack, so we have the full visibility of the bundle of the class that was
last resolved, so we can resolve its fields from it's bundle. Eg it
might import packages the client does not.
What is "client calling bundle"? I assume that it is the bundle that
contains the service lookup...
First of all, is the OSGi integration intending to be at "OSGi service
level" ? If so, the Jini support bundle(s) in OSGi, will monitor Jini
service registrations and register those in the local OSGi registry and all
clients would end up being rather ignorant about the remote lookup. It is
also possible to "be involved" in the service lookup (and registration)
through the Service Hook API (I might got the name of it wrong), so that
only when services are requested or service listeners are registered, does
the Jini support kick in. And this can therefore work both ways...
So, that said; I agree that the "client calling bundle" does not resolve
anything. And I would go further and say; IF the client calling bundle
looks up Jini services directly, all bets are off. This introduces some
workable constraints of what could happen.
The "exact version" thing (only applies to the proxy bundle as we
expect the framework to load its deps) can be relaxed to compatible
versions to increase class sharing if you think it helps. The proxy
bundle
doesn't export anything at the client, only the server, it just seems to
make sense to keep the latest proxy communicating in case that last
bug fix release addresses a security issue. All proxy classes are
implementation only classes.
Yes, correct. The 'temporary' proxy bundle should not export any packages.
Because the proxy bundle manifest declares version import ranges,
I'm expecting the framework to favour already loaded bundles to
satisfy package import deps.
Uhhhh... The OSGi framework doesn't "auto load" bundles. It is an explicit
step. There are many "bundle loaders" around, such as Apache Karaf
"Features" and "deploy/" directory. Most frameworks can also be instructed
to load bundles at boot. So there is no "favor already loaded bundles". If
there is no bundle satisfying the Import-Package, the bundle being resolved
will not go to RESOLVED state. If there are many bundles (quite typical)
satisfying an Import-Package, with all its additional contraints (versions,
attributes, uses, ...), then you enter the NP-complete problem that Michal
mentioned, finding a combination of wiring that satisfy as many bundles as
possible. This is a problem mainly due to "uses" (since we seldom use
attributes), where graphs of types must end up matching in the class space.
See (especially) section 3.7 in OSGi 6.0 Core Specification. If anyone can
get their head around those details in the first pass, it is you Peter. Not
easy reading...
If the client is matching service api with the correct import package
version ranges (requirements defined by entry's), the proxy bundle
should find the service api and other imported packages are already
loaded. Eg the client may use the requirements to use the resource
service or whatever the new bundle repository standard service is
called now to preload the requirements. The client may also perform
upgrades before downloading a service.
I think this is a misunderstanding as well. By doing what I wrote in the
beginning (listen on Jini Service Registrations and register "something"
(Remote proxy or a local proxy) in the OSGi registry) then the client
bundle doesn't need to know anything. Also, the Jini support bundle gets
plenty of information both from the OSGi Registry as well as the Jini
Registry. So, when something disappears from Reggie, remove it from the
local Registry and vice versa.
Now, the deserialization of the Reggie proxy should detect version changes
and update a cache. And I think that Paremus idea of "Bundle Garbage
Collection" is sound, but something for later discussion. Point being; No
need to figure out what can and can not be unloaded. ALSO, since OSGi
mandates intermittent service availability, most OSGi applications are
reasonably capable to handle that the Jini service will "disappear" and is
required to release any held references to the object(s) so that regular GC
can toss out the classes and classloader when bundle is unloaded.
In the majority of cases I don't think there's going to be much state
in the smart proxy that can't be loaded via the smart proxy bundle
and it's package imports, except for the odd handback, which the
client bundle should have the opportunity to resolve before
resorting to using an annotation.
Sorry, I don't understand this statement.
I'm not quite ready to agree it's too complex and it's unsolveable, I
think we should at least explore it and understand it before we junk
the idea of supporting OSGi.
If we are talking osgi<->osgi, I think there is reasonable chance to
succeed.
Rather than utilise the Java2 class loading I was planning to cast
ClassLoaders to BundleReference where appropriate and utilise
the Bundle.
My gut says that this is not needed, if you go with my initial proposal. A
Jini support bundle ends up having access to the BundleContext, from where
everything else can be reached.
I did notice you're interpretation of what I've written is different than
mine, so I think I need to put some effort into communicating more
effectively. I think you're interpretation of codebase annotation
"version is fixed" ignores that the annotation is only consulted after
determining that the current class is not available in our Bundles
currently participating in deserialization. It doesn't apply to resolved
imported packages as annotations aren't used for them at all.
OR, I have been burned in class resolution in OSGi enough times to have a
feeling that it is more difficult than it seems. Any simple example I can
think of would work...
For example, the first class we attempt to resolve during unmarshalling
belongs to a smart proxy, the client Bundle can't find the class. Ask the
framework to load the proxy bundle from the codebase annotation, it
does so and resolves all necessary package imports declared in its
manifest. We now continue deserializing the smart proxy class fields
with the visibility of the smart proxy's bundle. The smart proxy may
contain fields referencing objects resolved from its imports, we ensure
those classes deserialize their fields with the visibility of their own
bundles.
So, the smart proxy's "bundle" is a bundle on the server side as well? The
smart proxy may also contain objects that are of a class that is not
visible... And it may be N levels deep from the "field" in the smart proxy.
Every time we can't resolve a class we first check if it's a handback
or parameter from a preceeding object in the graph, thus we walk
our graphs bundle stack.
This is probably the bit I don't understand at all. On one hand you want to
depend on OSGi framework to do the resolution, but OTOH you have something
called a "bundle stack"? What is that?
If we still haven't resolved a class only then do we load a bundle from
it's codebase annotation url and check it can be cast to the field
before assigning it. If it can't be cast to that field, we throw an
exception.
"assigning it"? Doesn't the code in reality looks something like;
private Map map;
private void readObject( ObjectInputStream in ) {
map = (Map) in.readObject();
}
where the read object may be of a class not visible to neither the smart
proxy's classloader nor any helper? Maybe you meant that it will implicitly
thrown just by the above code.
In the case of a non smart proxy, there is no codebase, deserialization
will be loaded by and rely completely on the visibility of the client
bundle.
I think OSGi will be a lot less dependant on annotations than say a std
env.
Possibly... I think that largely depend on the usecase.
Still I guess wiring may be an an option, so as Michael suggests,
annotate objects with their wiring graphs.
Ok, here is what I see being the issue at hand; you think that it is
possible to delay the bundle resolution of packages until deserialization
itself. I think that is not possible. There is a need to bring all
"non-available classes" into the client (and I think as a bundle is the
correct solution). So, pick up the bundle reference of the smart proxy, and
the bundle wiring graph of it. When the smart proxy arrives on the client,
before doing anything else, load the bundles on the client. After that, it
should be a "local JVM" problem, both to deserialize the smart proxy as
well as every object communicated over the network.
What would we be considering if we hadn't been pre exposed to codebase
annotations?
Standard deserialization uses one classpath, each bundle has its own
unique classpath.
It is not only about classpath. It is about class space and visibility as
well. And serialization needs to bypass visibility, just like it bypassed
other constraints before (such as bypassing constructors and initializing
final fields), and that is a separate issue than the bundle loading
mechanism.
Cheers
--
Niclas Hedhman, Software Developer
http://polygene.apache.org - New Energy for Java
