Thanks again Mark.
I'll try removing the SecurityManager from the server.
I was starting the rmiresgistry with a separate DOS on the defauly port after I run rmic. I just read in O'Reilly's
Java Network Programming book about how to Locate and start a registry from within the program, so I'll switch to that tonight. It will be a lot nicer to have just a client and server command, rather than all 3.
As far as the localhost stuff, the intent there was if the client is started without arguments, it would use the url "rmi:/localhost/textBasedServer", otherwise it was going to paste in the argument which will be the machine name or IP address. I guess I'm not sure what you meant about the Client not needing a server. I wanted to use RMI either way, and just make that the switch, but maybe it makes more sense to avoid it if its all on the localhost. I really haven't done much to start the project, this is an experiment to see if I can RMI working, or if I should switch to object serialization.
And as far as your last question, I do see "textBasedServer is now bound to the RMI registry". So that would lead me to believe that its the client.
I'm really not convinced its not just a network problem. I'll post my results tonight.
Thanks again for your help.