Running Tomcat causes java.rmi.ServerException in the unrelated project

Question

I have a java non-web application that programmatically starts Jetty server to give API access to it. The communication between them are done via RMI. It all works fine until I start Tomcat that has no any relation to this project. If Tomcat is running, then I am getting the following exception while trying to start the application:

java.rmi.ServerException: RemoteException occurred in server thread; nested exception is:
    java.rmi.UnmarshalException: error unmarshalling arguments; nested exception is:
    java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: ua.cn.stu.datalink.rmi.AcmRemoteService (no security manager: RMI class loader disabled)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastServerRef.oldDispatch(UnicastServerRef.java:420)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastServerRef.dispatch(UnicastServerRef.java:268)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Transport.java:200)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Transport.java:197)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport.serviceCall(Transport.java:196)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport.handleMessages(TCPTransport.java:568)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run0(TCPTransport.java:826)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.lambda$run$254(TCPTransport.java:683)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler$$Lambda$1/351702438.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run(TCPTransport.java:682)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
    at sun.rmi.transport.StreamRemoteCall.exceptionReceivedFromServer(StreamRemoteCall.java:276)
    at sun.rmi.transport.StreamRemoteCall.executeCall(StreamRemoteCall.java:253)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastRef.invoke(UnicastRef.java:379)
    at sun.rmi.registry.RegistryImpl_Stub.rebind(Unknown Source)
    at ua.cn.stu.datalink.acmserver.rmi.AcmRemoteServiceImpl.main(AcmRemoteServiceImpl.java:107)
    at ua.cn.stu.datalink.acmserver.rmi.AcmRemoteServiceImpl$2.run(AcmRemoteServiceImpl.java:138)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.rmi.UnmarshalException: error unmarshalling arguments; nested exception is:
    java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: ua.cn.stu.datalink.rmi.AcmRemoteService (no security manager: RMI class loader disabled)
    at sun.rmi.registry.RegistryImpl_Skel.dispatch(Unknown Source)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastServerRef.oldDispatch(UnicastServerRef.java:410)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastServerRef.dispatch(UnicastServerRef.java:268)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Transport.java:200)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Transport.java:197)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport.serviceCall(Transport.java:196)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport.handleMessages(TCPTransport.java:568)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run0(TCPTransport.java:826)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.lambda$run$254(TCPTransport.java:683)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler$$Lambda$1/351702438.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run(TCPTransport.java:682)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    ... 1 more
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: ua.cn.stu.datalink.rmi.AcmRemoteService (no security manager: RMI class loader disabled)
    at sun.rmi.server.LoaderHandler.loadProxyClass(LoaderHandler.java:556)
    at java.rmi.server.RMIClassLoader$2.loadProxyClass(RMIClassLoader.java:646)
    at java.rmi.server.RMIClassLoader.loadProxyClass(RMIClassLoader.java:311)
    at sun.rmi.server.MarshalInputStream.resolveProxyClass(MarshalInputStream.java:255)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readProxyDesc(ObjectInputStream.java:1559)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readClassDesc(ObjectInputStream.java:1515)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readOrdinaryObject(ObjectInputStream.java:1774)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1351)
    at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject(ObjectInputStream.java:371)
    ... 16 more

It seems like the problem lies here - ua.cn.stu.datalink.rmi.AcmRemoteService (no security manager: RMI class loader disabled)

But why starting Tomcat disables RMI class loader?

Answer 1

You must be conditionally starting a registry, that doesn't start if one is running anyway, and Tomcat is starting its own. So when you bind, you're binding to Tomcat's registry, which doesn't have that class available, so it fails.