Chapter 13 Configuring the Object Request Broker

This chapter describes how to configure the Object Request Broker (ORB) and IIOP listeners. It has the following sections:

• About the Object Request Broker

• Admin Console Tasks for the ORB

• Admin Console Tasks for IIOP Listeners

About the Object Request Broker

• CORBA

• What is the ORB?

• IIOP Listeners

CORBA

The Application Server supports a standard set of protocols and formats that ensure interoperability. Among these protocols are those defined by CORBA.

The CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) model is based on clients requesting services from distributed objects or servers through a well-defined interface by issuing requests to the objects in the form of remote method requests. A remote method request carries information about the operation that needs to be performed, including the object name (called an object reference) of the service provider and parameters, if any, for the invoked method. CORBA automatically handles network programming tasks such as object registration, object location, object activation, request de-multiplexing, error-handling, marshalling, and operation dispatching.

What is the ORB?

The Object Request Broker (ORB) is the central component of CORBA. The ORB provides the required infrastructure to identify and locate objects, handle connection management, deliver data, and request communication.

A CORBA object never talks directly with another. Instead, the object makes requests through a remote stub to the ORB running on the local machine. The local ORB then passes the request to an ORB on the other machine using the Internet Inter-Orb Protocol (IIOP for short). The remote ORB then locates the appropriate object, processes the request, and returns the results.

IIOP can be used as a Remote Method Invocation (RMI) protocol by applications or objects using RMI-IIOP. Remote clients of enterprise beans (EJB modules) communicate with the Application Server via RMI-IIOP.

IIOP Listeners

An IIOP listener is a listen socket that accepts incoming connections from the remote clients of enterprise beans and from other CORBA-based clients. Multiple IIOP listeners can be configured for the Application Server. For each listener, specify a port number, a network address, and optionally, security attributes. For more information, see To create an IIOP listener.

Admin Console Tasks for the ORB

• To configure the ORB

To configure the ORB

1. In the tree component, expand the Configuration node.

2. Select the ORB node.

3. Choose the thread pool the ORB uses from the Thread Pool ID drop-down list.

   The ORB uses thread pools to respond to requests from remote clients of enterprise beans and other clients that communicate via RMI-IIOP. For more information, see About Thread Pools and To create a thread pool.

4. In the Max Message Fragment Size field, set the maximum fragment size for IIOP messages.

   Messages larger than this size are fragmented.

5. In the Total Connections field, set the maximum number of incoming connections for all IIOP listeners.

6. Select the Required checkbox if IIOP client authentication is required.

7. Click Save to save the changes, or Load Defaults to load the default values.

8. Restart the server.

Admin Console Tasks for IIOP Listeners

• To create an IIOP listener

• To edit an IIOP listener

• To delete an IIOP listener

To create an IIOP listener

1. In the tree component, expand the Configuration node.

2. Expand the ORB node.

3. Select IIOP Listeners.

4. Click New.

5. Enter a name to identify the listener in the Name field.

6. Enter the network address of the listener in the Network Address field.

   This can be an IP address or a DNS resolvable host name.

7. In the Listener Port field, enter the port number upon which the listener is to listen.

8. Check the Enabled box in the Listener field to enable the listener.

9. In the Additional Properties area, provide values for properties required by applications.

10. To create a listener:

    • To create a listener that is not secure, click OK.

    • To set up a secure listener, do the following:

      1. Check the Enabled box in the Security field.

      2. To force clients to authenticate themselves to the server when using this listener, check the Enabled box in the Client Authentication field.

      3. Enter the name of an existing server key pair and certificate in the Certificate NickName field.

      4. In the SSL3/TLS section:

         1. Check the security protocol(s) to enable on the listener. Check either SSL3 or TLS, or enable both protocols.

         2. Check the cipher suite used by the protocol(s).

            To enable all cipher suites, check All Supported Cipher Suites. You can also enable individual cipher suites.

      5. Click OK.

         The listener is now listed in the Current Listeners table on the IIOP Listeners page.

Equivalent asadmin commands

create-iiop-listener and create-ssl

To edit an IIOP listener

1. In the tree component, expand the Configuration node.

2. Expand the ORB node.

3. Select the IIOP Listeners node.

4. Select the listener to be modified in the Current Listeners table.

5. Modify the listener’s settings.

   See To create an IIOP listener for descriptions of the fields that are modifiable.

6. If you changed the port number of the listener, restart the server.

To delete an IIOP listener

1. In the tree component, expand the Configuration node.

2. Expand the ORB node.

3. Select the IIOP Listeners node.

4. Check the listener(s) to be deleted in the Current Listeners table.

5. Click Delete.

Equivalent asadmin command

delete-iiop-listener