Validation of server host string

I was reviewing my code and noticed that I didn't include much validation on the server host string in my configuration dialog.

I decided the user was free to use anything (to allow host name instead of using IP).

But even if I just allow IP address, any valid IP is considered, thus when I attempt to connect to www.google.com, for instance, the application hangs in my lookup call.

How can I get around this?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Batista -

Are you using sockets or rmi?
On RMI I can comment:

The application doesn't hang. You get a . But it takes some time (around 1 min maybe which is adjustable.)

Usually you do something like this to get the remote object:

But when you try with google:

it appears to be hanged... but you get a after a while.

java.rmi.ConnectException: Connection refused to host: www.google.com; nested exception is:
java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect

Even with proper RMI Server there maybe a time lag if it's a remote machine and network traffic is high.

So I think you should change the mouse cursor to Hour-Glass informing the user that we are waiting for the server to respond and change it back when we get a response or exception.

Oops. Sorry there. I thought [CODE] works like <code> in HTML

I didn't know it was <p><hr><code>...</hr></code></p>

Hi all,

For server host, I suggest you should validate it by using java.net.InetAddress class. This class can check both IP address and host name.

Hope this help.

Many thanks for the replies!
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