Installing and Building JacORB

Content

Prerequisites

This release has been tested on:

Installation
  1. recommended:
    Download "Ant" and install as described in its documentation (needed to build the demos and if you want to rebuild JacORB.)
  2. Extend your search path to include the /bin subdirectory of the installation directory so that the JacORB utilities can be found.
  3. If you can't or don't want to use the jaco[.bat] start scripts, copy orb.properties to JAVA_HOME/lib or edit the existing orb.properties file.
  4. Edit jacorb.properties and copy them to your "home" directory. Please use jacorb_properties.template as a template. Most options need no configuration, but make sure you adjust at last the URL strings for the services you plan to use (e.g. NameService and so on) to match your domain's web server or local file system structure. Please consult the programming guide's section on setting up the name server for details. The trader and the implementation repository are located using the same mechanism. If you don't need these services, just comment out the corresponding line in the properties file.

    Also, you can configure how much diagnostic information JacORB emits by setting the jacorb.log.default.verbosity property. A value of 0 means no output, level 1 emits basic connection information, and levels 2 and above are debug levels.

    NOTE: If you are updating from an existing JacORB installation you MUST change existing jacorb.properties files to reflect the changes in package names (the leading "org.") where property values point to JacORB classes. E.g., the value for property:

    org.omg.PortableInterceptor.ORBInitializerClass.standard_init

    must be changed to:

    org.jacorb.orb.standardInterceptors.IORInterceptorInitializer

  5. Generate or edit the start scripts jaco and jaco.bat: (This step is carried out automatically by the build process, so it is only required if you are not rebuilding JacORB.)
    1. If you have Ant installed, simply call "ant jaco"
    2. If you don't have Ant, you need to create and adapt the jaco[.bat] script in bin yourself to update the classpath. You can use the file jacotemplate[.bat] as a template and replace the @@@XYZ_HOME@@@ placeholders by your actual paths.

      You will also need to replace the @@@CLASSPATH@@@ tokens with appropriate values:

      -Djava.endorsed.dirs=${JACORB_HOME}/lib \
      -classpath ${JACORB_HOME}/lib/jacorb.jar:\
      ${JACORB_HOME}/lib/logkit-1.2.jar:\
      ${JACORB_HOME}/lib/avalon-framework-4.1.5.jar:\
      ${JACORB_HOME}/lib/concurrent-1.3.2.jar:\
      ${JACORB_HOME}/lib/antlr-2.7.2.jar

  6. Generate or edit the IDL compiler scripts idl and idl.bat if you plan to use the IDL compiler. (This step is carried out automatically by the build process, so it is only required if you are not rebuilding JacORB.)
    1. If you have Ant installed, simply call ant idlcmd
    2. If you don't have Ant, you need to create and adapt the idl[.bat] script in bin yourself to update the classpath. You can use the file idltemplate[.bat] as a template and replace the @@@XYZ_HOME@@@ placeholders by your actual paths.
  7. If you prefer host names instead of IP addresses in your IORs you have to install dnsjava (make its classes present) and recompile src/org/jacorb/orb/dns. To recompile, do an "ant" in that dir, and an "ant libs" in the JacORB root dir. If you're absolutely sure that you're not using the jacorb.jar, you can omit rebuilding the libs.

    If the IP addresses aren't resolved properly at all, see the dnsjava docs on how to set properties to tell dnsjava where to look for the DNS servers.

    Building JacORB (Optional)

    Ensure that Ant (See version requirements above) is installed on your system and that you are starting with a clean environment. The easiest way to start is with your CLASSPATH unset. If CLASSPATH is set to anything, it must contain ${installdir}/lib/logkit-1.2.jar!

    N.B. Windows users should ensure that JacORB is installed in a path that does not contain spaces. Errors will be encountered building the Notification Service otherwise.

    To build JacORB you need to call "ant" in the installation directory:

    $> ant

    By default debugging is turned off when building JacORB. To build JacORB with debugging turned on, you need to call "ant -Ddebug=on" in the installation directory:

    $> ant -Ddebug=on

    Under Ant1.5 and above the debuglevel may also be set e.g.

    $> ant -Ddebug=on -Ddebuglevel=lines,source,vars

    NOTES:

    The build process may abort, claiming that javac does not have enough memory. This can happen when trying to compile a large number of files at one time. To avoid this on Unix, copy the file "ANTRC" to your home directory renaming it to ".antrc". If you are building on a Windows platform copy the antrc_pre.bat file to your home directory (as denoted by %HOME%). ant will consult these files and use a larger Java maximum heap size. If this is not applicable in your setting you need to edit ANT_HOME/bin/ant(.bat) such that the java interpreter is passed the -mx48m (or whatever) switch.

    For Windows add the following line after calling antrc_pre.bat

    set ANT_OPTS=-mx48m %ANT_OPTS%

    For Unix add the following line after sourcing .antrc

    ANT_OPTS=-mx48m $ANT_OPTS

    Yet another way of achieving the same is by setting the ANT_OPTS environment variable. On Windows:

    set ANT_OPTS=-mx48m

    or on Unix:
    export ANT_OPTS=-mx48m

Gerald Brose, May 2004.