local ejb reference from custom service

Hi,
I have a custom service that gets initialized when the application server (WebSphere 5.0) start up. The problem is that I need to get a local reference to a session ejb in the custom service. There's no deployment descriptor where I can configure the reference, so how can I do this? I've tried adding the reference to the web.xml file (doesn't help, probably since it's not a servlet). Local ejb references defined in the EJB project only works inside other EJBs.
I'm stuck. Any ideas?
Thanks,
/ Stefan

Not too happy with my current solution, but this is how I managed to get it working:
1. Create a servlet in the web project.
2. Configure the servlet to load at startup.
3. Define the local ejb reference in the web.xml file
4. Have the servlet create the singleton instance of the class where the local ejb reference is looked up. The singleton instance is cached.
5. When the custom service wakes up at a later time, it picks up the cached instance of the class and gets going.
Kind of ugly since I need to make sure that the servlet is initialized before the custom service wakes up (the custom service is a task scheduler). If anyone knows of a better solution, let me know.

/ Stefan

how come if I don't define <ejb-ref-name>?
I want to look up the local bean directly from JNDI server. surpose the JNDI name of this local bean is:ejb/au/com/toyota/epc/ejb/ModelList/ModelListLocalHome, which I paste from ibm-ejb-jar-bnd.xml, what is the JNDI reference to use when in a session bean?
context.lookup(" WHAT TO WRITE HERE??? ");
help me, thanks!

try:
ic.lookup("java:comp/env/ejb/au/com/toyota/epc/ejb/ModelList/ModelListLocalHome")

If you are referring the JNDI names from custom service, use the absolute names like
cells/<cell name>/nodes/<node name>/servers/<server name>/ejb/<ejabname>

cells/<cell name >/nodes/<node name>/servers/<server name>/ejb/<ejb name>

Thanks,
great idea, but do you know in which deployment descriptor I define the local ejb reference so that it is available using an absolute path? I can easily find the remote ejb using something like:
cell/nodes/localhost/servers/server1/ejb/MyEjb
What about local ones?
Thanks,
/ Stefan

Finally figured it out. Do a lookup on "local:ejb/<ejb-jndi-name>", and you'll get the local home for any ejb from any context (including a custom service).
/ Stefan