GEP 3 - Remote activation in bonobo-activation

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

hi

I've just added to the gep module the gep-3.html, which is about adding
support for activating remote objects in bonobo-activation. Also
attached here.

cheers

Title: ENHANCEMENT GEP 3: Support for remote activation in bonobo-activation

This GNOME Enhancement Proposal documents the changes proposed for adding support for activating remote objects in bonobo-activation.

1. Administrivia

Document Owner

Rodrigo Moya

Posted

August 18, 2002

Discussion Period Ends

October 1, 2002

Status

Pending

Discussion List

gnome-components-list gnome org

Responsible Persons

Michael Meeks, Anders Carlsson, Mark McLouglin,

2. Proposal

2.1 Requirements

One of the missing gaps in the GNOME CORBA support is the possibility of activating remote objects (that is, components that are installed in remote machines). To add this support, a few changes on the bonobo-activation architecture are proposed in this GEP

The idea is to be able to install network-wide components, that can transparently be activated from other machines. This will allow things like company-wide services to be installed in dedicated machines, and having network clients activating those services via CORBA over the network.

It must be possible to have the remote activation system support session management, as well as other things such as desktop theme (for UI components, like controls or embeddables), configuration database, etc, so that remotely activated components act just as if they were local (ie, transparently to users or applications).

2.2 Daemon support

For this to work, support must be added in some way to the current bonobo-activation architecture to support the nomenclature and protocol for the remote activation.

There are several ways this can be fixed:

• Opening an SSH session to the machine holding the component to be activated, and start the local-per-user bonobo-activation daemon on that machine, so that it activates the component.
• Create a system-wide daemon that listens on a well known port for requests from bonobo-activation clients on other machines.

2.3 Client side

On the client side (bonobo-activation clients) some kind of support must be added so that using the same functions (bonobo_activation_activate), clients are able to request activation of remote objects. This could be done using the already existing username/hostname in the bonobo activation per-component information (.server files and activation contexts).

3. Issues Raised During Discussion

None yet.

4. Decision and Rationale

None yet.

5. Amendments and Clarifications

None yet.