Chat Server Directory Service

[Nathan Heimdall]

Hi All,

I'm trying to implement a Chat Server Directory service.

I've created several Multi threaded Chat servers ( and clients) using sockets.

I want to have a Chat directory where the Chat servers can register as soon as they are available and once they shut down they are no longer listed in the directory.

The client can contact the directory service to request the list of servers and select which server to connect to.

So far I've implemented the server and client using sockets.

Any inputs on how to go about implementing the directory service?

Thanks,

[Rob Spoor]

I'd use RMI. You will have one extra server, the directory service. This uses a UnicastRemoteObject subclass that implements your custom interface (which in turn extends Remote). Each chat server will become a client of this service.

An example on how the remote interface could look like:

public interface ChatServerDirectory extends Remote
{
    public void register(ChatServer server) throws RemoteException;

    public void unregister(ChatServer server) throws RemoteException;

    public List<ChatServer> getChatServers() throws RemoteException;
}

This of course assumes that the ChatServer class is Serializable. It probably isn't (because of the sockets it uses), so you will need some little container class which does and holds the information on each chat server: name, host, port, etc. If you only need the host and port you could use InetSocketAddress for this.

Check out http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/rmi/index.html for more information on RMI. If you have any problems regarding RMI itself, you should visit our Distributed Java forum.

[Nathan Heimdall]

Will do, Thank you!