How to access an EJB from a JSF application on separate machines?

Question

I have an Enterprise Application with an EJB implementing a @Remote business interface that I would like to access from a JSF managed bean on a different machine. They are both development machines with Netbeans 7 and Glassfish 3.1. I believe the answer lies with CORBA, but I do not think I am doing it right.

Is there a better option then CORBA for this?

Here is where I found how to use corbaname:iiop http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19798-01/821-1752/beanv/index.html

This is my EJB Interface:

package remote.ejb;

import javax.ejb.Remote;

@Remote
public interface HelloRemote {
    public String getHello();
}

Enterprise Application: RemoteEJBTest Java EE Module: RemoteEJBTest-ejb

EJB:

package remote.ejb;

import javax.ejb.EJB;
import javax.ejb.Remote;
import javax.ejb.Stateless;

@Stateless
public class HelloBean implements HelloRemote {

    @Override
    public String getHello() {
        return "Hello World!";
    }
}

Web Application: RemoteWebTest

package hello.web;

import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.RequestScoped;
import javax.naming.InitialContext;
import javax.naming.NamingException;
import javax.rmi.PortableRemoteObject;
import remote.ejb.HelloRemote;

@ManagedBean
@RequestScoped
public class Hello {
    private HelloRemote helloBean;

    private String hello;

    public Hello() throws NamingException {

        InitialContext ctx = new InitialContext();

        Object obj = ctx.lookup("corbaname:iiop:remote_ip:3700#RemoteEJBTest/RemoteEJBTest-egb/HelloBean");
        helloBean = (HelloRemote) PortableRemoteObject.narrow(obj,HelloRemote.class);
    }

    public String getHello(){
        return helloBean.getHello();
    }
}

Here is the stack trace http://pastebin.com/PxNCKCg4

relavent parts of stack trace:

com.sun.faces.mgbean.ManagedBeanCreationException: Cant instantiate class: hello.web.Hello.
    at com.sun.faces.mgbean.BeanBuilder.newBeanInstance(BeanBuilder.java:193)
    at com.sun.faces.mgbean.BeanBuilder.build(BeanBuilder.java:102)

Caused by: javax.naming.NameNotFoundException [Root exception is org.omg.CosNaming.NamingContextPackage.NotFound: IDL:omg.org/CosNaming/NamingContext/NotFound:1.0]
    at com.sun.jndi.cosnaming.ExceptionMapper.mapException(ExceptionMapper.java:44)
    at com.sun.jndi.cosnaming.CNCtx.callResolve(CNCtx.java:485)

Caused by: org.omg.CosNaming.NamingContextPackage.NotFound: IDL:omg.org/CosNaming/NamingContext/NotFound:1.0
    at org.omg.CosNaming.NamingContextPackage.NotFoundHelper.read(NotFoundHelper.java:72)
    at org.omg.CosNaming._NamingContextStub.resolve(_NamingContextStub.java:251)
    at com.sun.jndi.cosnaming.CNCtx.callResolve(CNCtx.java:471)
... 59 more

What is the best way to split EJBs over multiple remote machines?

Answer 1

Hum... I think you missed a couple of steps here.

First you need to create a ejb-ref entrance in glassfish-web.xml like this:

<ejb-ref>
   <ejb-ref-name>ejb/Foo</ejb-ref-name>
   <jndi-name>corbaname:iiop:host:port#a/b/Foo</jndi-name>
<ejb-ref>

Second you reference your ejb name directly.

Context ic = new InitialContext();
Object o = ic.lookup("java:comp/env/ejb/Foo");

And since you are using a Java EE container with EJB 3.1 support, why don't you inject the EJB directly at the managed bean using @EJB (I think it is a lot cleaner than JNDI lookup):

@EJB(name="your-ref-name")
BeanRemoteInterface beanRemoteInterface; 

Take a look here for further info: http://glassfish.java.net/javaee5/ejb/EJB_FAQ.html#cross-appserverremoteref