rmid(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   rmid(1)

NAME

       rmid - RMI activation system daemon

SYNOPSIS

       rmid [ options ]

DESCRIPTION

       The  rmid tool starts the activation system daemon. Before activatable objects can be either registered with the activation system or acti-
       vated in a Java VM, the activation system daemon must be started.  See the RMI Specification and Activation Tutorials 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:

	    example% 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 JVM for an activation group.  Specifically,  the  com-
       mand  and options specified by the CommandEnvironment and any Properties passed to an ActivationGroupDesc's constructor must now be explic-
       itly 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 JVM for an activation group.

       Executing rmid by default

	      o starts the Activator and an internal registry on the default port, 1098, and
	      o 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 (Linux) 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, then rmid was started from the command line, and it starts up as described above.

       If the inherited channel is not an instance of java.io.channels.ServerSocketChannel, rmid exits.

       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.Activa-
       tionSystem is bound and the java.rmi.activation.Activator remote object.

       The rmid tool, when started from inetd/xinetd, behaves the same as when it is started from the command line, except:

       o 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".

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

       o 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 (Linux) for details on how to configure services to be started on demand.

OPTIONS

       -CsomeCommandLineOption
	      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 Java virtual machine spawned by the activation system daemon:

		   rmid -C-Dsome.property=value

	      This ability to pass command-line arguments o 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 JVMs.

       -JsomeCommandLineOption
	      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 JVM in which an activation
	      group runs.  Please note that this option exists only in Sun's implementation of the 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:

	      o 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 JVM for an activation group using the information in the group's registered activation group descriptor, an  Acti-
		vationGroupDesc.   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:

		     -Dproperty=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	CommandEn-
		vironment, 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 (that is, 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 acti-
		       vation 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  (that is, it matches any option), or an asterisk may appear at the end of the option name only if the asterisk fol-
		       lows 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 (that is, 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/bin/java";

		    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 permission granted allow rmid to execute the 1.2.2 version of the java command, specified by its  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/rmid-
		cmds.

		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

	      o policyClassName

		If the default behavior is not flexible enough, an administrator can provide, when starting rmid, the name of a class whose check-
		ExecCommand 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  check-
		ExecCommand 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.

	      o 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.activa-
	      tion.ActivationSystem,  in  this registry.  Thus, the ActivationSystem on the local machine can be obtained using the following Nam-
	      ing.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 run-
	      ning on port 1098.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       CLASSPATH	   Used to provide the system a path to user-defined classes.  Directories are separated by colons.  For example,

			   example% .:/usr/local/java/classes

SEE ALSO

       rmic(1)

       See (or search java.sun.com) for the following:

       RMI Specification @
	 http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5/docs/guide/rmi/spec/rmiTOC.doc.html

								   10 March 2001							   rmid(1)