Details
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Bug
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Status: Closed
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Major
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Resolution: Fixed
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jcs-1.3
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None
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None
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None
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Linux and other *nix systems
Description
Per JDK bug http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4665037
...InetAddress.getLocalHost() is ambiguous on Linux systems. JCS uses this method. We have found that the issue breaks JCS networking on Linux/*nix systems (tested on Fedora, Red Hat and CentOS) configured with both static and DHCP-assigned IP addresses. The only workarounds we can find either do not 100% fix the problem, or require non-optimal configuration of the OS loopback connection.
Background:
On Windows the address returned by InetAddress.getLocalHost() is fairly consistent; typically the server's LAN address. On Windows systems with multiple network cards (e.g. Internet, WAN, LAN, VPN, multi-homed), the address returned is ambiguous however.
On Linux, the address returned by InetAddress.getLocalHost() seems to depend on the order in which the OS lists network interfaces, which really should be irrelevant. Furthermore the behaviour can vary between Linux distributions. Linux always exposes the loopback address (127.0.0.1) as a virtual network card, as if it was a physical NIC. On servers using DHCP, the method usually returns the loopback address. On servers configured with static IP addresses, depending on OS ordering, the method sometimes returns the LAN address but sometimes returns the loopback (127.0.0.1) address.
InetAddress.getLocalHost() makes no attempt to prioritize LAN/non-loopback addresses in its selection.
Impact on JCS:
This affects networking in JCS in general. e.g. remote cache and lateral cache. JCS can bind to the loopback interface (127.0.0.1) instead of the LAN address, or the RMI system can advertise the wrong (127.0.0.1) IP address to clients when sending events. We use the JCS remote cache server, and saw both of these issues on Fedora, Red Hat and CentOS machines configured with static and DHCP-assigned addresses.
We first tried various workarounds:
-setting system property java.rmi.server.hostname=x.x.x.x
--> JCS overrides this by supplying an invalid (127.0.0.1) IP address to the RMI subsystem explicitly
-changing the IP address associated with localhost in /etc/hosts file from 127.0.0.1 to the machines LAN address
-->reduces the performance of inter-process (loopback) communication on the server
In the end we modified the JCS source code, and we have been running it flawlessly for the past 8 months. The fix requires JDK 1.4. Can we therefore get it integrated into the next 1.4 release of JCS?
JCS uses InetAddress.getLocalHost() in the following classes:
org/apache/jcs/auxiliary/lateral/socket/tcp/discovery/UDPDiscoveryService.java
org/apache/jcs/auxiliary/remote/server/RemoteCacheStartupServlet.java
org/apache/jcs/utils/net/HostNameUtil.java
We updated UDPDiscoveryService and RemoteCacheStartupServlet to not call InetAddress.getLocalHost() directly, but to call the getLocalHostAddress() method in HostNameUtil instead.
We then changed the implementation of HostNameUtil.getLocalHostAddress() as follows:
public static String getLocalHostAddress() throws UnknownHostException
{ return getLocalHostLANAddress().getHostAddress(); }/**
- Returns an <code>InetAddress</code> object encapsulating what is most likely the machine's LAN IP address.
- <p/>
- This method is intended for use as a replacement of JDK method <code>InetAddress.getLocalHost</code>, because
- that method is ambiguous on Linux systems. Linux systems enumerate the loopback network interface the same
- way as regular LAN network interfaces, but the JDK <code>InetAddress.getLocalHost</code> method does not
- specify the algorithm used to select the address returned under such circumstances, and will often return the
- loopback address, which is not valid for network communication. Details
- <a href="http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4665037">here</a>.
- <p/>
- This method will scan all IP addresses on all network interfaces on the host machine to determine the IP address
- most likely to be the machine's LAN address. If the machine has multiple IP addresses, this method will prefer
- a site-local IP address (e.g. 192.168.x.x or 10.10.x.x, usually IPv4) if the machine has one (and will return the
- first site-local address if the machine has more than one), but if the machine does not hold a site-local
- address, this method will return simply the first non-loopback address found (IPv4 or IPv6).
- <p/>
- If this method cannot find a non-loopback address using this selection algorithm, it will fall back to
- calling and returning the result of JDK method <code>InetAddress.getLocalHost</code>.
- <p/>
* - @throws UnknownHostException If the LAN address of the machine cannot be found.
*/
private static InetAddress getLocalHostLANAddress() throws UnknownHostException {
try {
InetAddress candidateAddress = null;
// Iterate all NICs (network interface cards)...
for (Enumeration ifaces = NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces(); ifaces.hasMoreElements()
{
NetworkInterface iface = (NetworkInterface) ifaces.nextElement();
// Iterate all IP addresses assigned to each card...
for (Enumeration inetAddrs = iface.getInetAddresses(); inetAddrs.hasMoreElements() {
InetAddress inetAddr = (InetAddress) inetAddrs.nextElement();
if (!inetAddr.isLoopbackAddress()) {
if (inetAddr.isSiteLocalAddress())
{ // Found non-loopback site-local address. Return it immediately... return inetAddr; }else if (candidateAddress == null)
{ // Found non-loopback address, but not necessarily site-local. // Store it as a candidate to be returned if site-local address is not subsequently found... candidateAddress = inetAddr; // Note that we don't repeatedly assign non-loopback non-site-local addresses as candidates, // only the first. For subsequent iterations, candidate will be non-null. } }
}
}
if (candidateAddress != null)
// At this point, we did not find a non-loopback address.
// Fall back to returning whatever InetAddress.getLocalHost() returns...
InetAddress jdkSuppliedAddress = InetAddress.getLocalHost();
if (jdkSuppliedAddress == null)
return jdkSuppliedAddress;
}
catch (Exception e)
}
