Problem accessing data sources from remote machines

This is a strange problem with websphere (it pales in comparison with some of the other stuff that I have seen, but is a bit of a show-stopper at the moment).
If I try to access a remote data source from another box having a websphere installation (i.e. I use the jvm that comes bundled with websphere), then it works fine.
If I try to access the same data source from another box which does not benefit from a websphere installation (and runs some run of the mill 1.3 jdk) then it doesn't work. It must have something to do with the jvm or the classpath, but I can't figure it out. I get a class cast exception for a class out of utils.jar
java.lang.ClassCastException: com.ibm.ws.naming.util.CacheableReference
And just to reiterate... it works fine from another box which has a websphere installation on it. I run the test harness from a standalone jvm (the jvm that came bundled with websphere).
All machines are solaris 8, and the websphere machines use Oracle for their server repository.

And just to complete the story, I am running websphere 4.0.3, so hopefully it doesn't have the "not supported" tag on it.

Ah -- THERE I can help you. Your problem is simply in trying to use another JVM other than IBM's. See this page to fix your problem.
Kyle

Thanks Kyle... been there, done that...
Since the platform is Solaris, the only way that remote lookup of beans and the like works is using JDK 1.2.2 from Sun !!. Like I said, only the data source lookups fail.
So I was just wondering if somebody from IBM has done this already and has a readymade classpath that I can use...

OK, so I'm confused. You're saying that the lightweight client-container doesn't work with JDK 1.2.2? Or are you trying to use a different Sun JDK?
Kyle

Read the readme, and it said that this thingy applies for Windows clients. In fact the readme is entirely oriented towards Windows. No mention of Solaris in that at all. Are you sure (you must be, but I'm just double checking) that this thingy will work with Solaris as well?
And yes, I am using the Sun 1.2.2 JDK, and with all these jars in the classpath, it DOES NOT WORK !! I have sent you an e-mail with the details of the exact error that I am encountering...

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get around to really comprehending this, but I think I have a final answer now. Your question is really "can I get access to all WebSphere resources without installing the WebSphere client container? The answer is (unfortunately) no. Only the J2EE application client (the "launchClient.sh" application) allows access to all J2EE resources like DataSources. Thus, you MUST complete an installation of at least the client container an any machine on which you need to run a client that will connect to a WebSphere server.
However, I think that you can choose to install only the client portion with the "custom installation" installation procedure in WebSphere -- What's more, I'm pretty sure that a client-only installation doesn't even count as an installation for licensing purposes.
Kyle
[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kyle Brown ]