[jacorb-developer] FYI - ORB classloader change in Java 7u55, Java 8u5 - Suggestions needed

[Nick Cross]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the detailed information. If you could work to provide a test 
case I'd be happy to work with you on this.

Thanks

Nick

On 09/05/14 20:12, Timothy Astle wrote:
> http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk7u/jdk7u60/corba/rev/a8d27c3fc4e4
>
> The change looks to be introduced into:
> * Java 8 update 5
> * Java 7 update 55
> * Java 6 (looks like it was backported there too)
>
> It appears that people are just starting to encounter this issue as they
> update their JREs:
> * https://java.net/jira/browse/GLASSFISH-21047
> *
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23225144/java-7u55-eclipse-system-fragment-classloader
>
> It can affect web applications that are distributing JacORB within the
> web application itself.  Oracle changed the classloader that searches
> for the ORBSingletonClass, so now the implementation class must be on
> the System classpath, not the web application's classpath, else the JRE
> will not find the implementation.  You can see how this applies to
> servlet containers here:
> http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/class-loader-howto.html
>
> People will most likely see this exception when it is encountered:
>
> Caused by: org.omg.CORBA.INITIALIZE: can't instantiate default ORB
> implementation com.sun.corba.ee.impl.orb.ORBSingleton vmcid: 0x0 minor
> code: 0 completed: No
> at org.omg.CORBA.ORB.create_impl_with_systemclassloader(ORB.java:309)
> at org.omg.CORBA.ORB.init(ORB.java:294)
>
> I was in contact with the committer from Oracle today.  He says this is
> not a bug, but they admit that the documentation on the change was poor
> and they've been getting a fair amount of issues filed about it in their
> bug database (http://bugs.java.com).  I believe they aim on remedying this.
>
> So I'm left with a question to the experienced JacORB developers:
>
> Is there a way that I can distribute JacORB within a WAR file and have
> it work given the breaking change in the JRE?  I was basically just
> doing this:
>
> Properties props = new Properties();
> props.setProperty("org.omg.CORBA.ORBClass", "org.jacorb.orb.ORB");
> props.setProperty("org.omg.CORBA.ORBSingletonClass",
> "org.jacorb.orb.ORBSingleton");
> org.jacorb.orb.ORB orb = (org.jacorb.orb.ORB)
> org.omg.CORBA.ORB.init(args, props);
>
> I know the JacORB docs always mention supplying the ORB to the
> bootclasspath (http://www.jacorb.org/TomcatHowto.html), but I didn't
> seem to have any problems just bundling it into the WAR itself.
>
> Any tips would be appreciated,
>