Implementing own Policy - Problems occur.

Question

I am implementing my own Policy class (via the -Xbootclasspath and
java.security file). (Using jdk 1.4)
I have two problems:
1. My Policy class is not instantiated unless I call Policy.getPolicy()
a. I have run the app as such:
java -Djava.security.manager -Xbootclasspath:d:\JavaProjects;d:\jdk1.4\jre\l
ib\rt.jar -Djava.security.policy=d:\javaprojects\com\zeno\security\policy\po
licyfile.policy  MyAppb. I have set (in java.security):
policy.provider=com.MyTest.SecurityPolicy
c. I have in the constructor: System.out.println("Policy Instanitated");
d.When I run the app, I do not get "Policy Instantiated" until AFTER I
call Policy.getPolicy() (and I never get it if I don't call getPolicy())
2. For some reason, when I do the following, it never calls getPermissions()
or implies() on my Policy file:
    FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("d:\\testfile.txt");
    int ch;
    while ( (ch = fis.read()) != -1 )
        System.out.println(ch);
    }a. Inside my Policy class' methods I have a System.out.println() for
each one, and they're never called.
Thank you

Answer 1

I am experiencing almost exactly the same problem. The documentation seems a little spotty on this, so we're probably missing something. I am using the following syntax:
java -Djava.security.manager -Dpolicy.provider=security.MyPolicy -Xbootclasspath/a:c:\jdk1.3.0_02\jre\classes -Djava.security.policy=java.policy security.Test
The -Xbootclasspath/a: option appends (at the beginning) instead of replacing, so you don't have to specify rt.jar. I put my custom Policy class (security.MyPolicy) in c:\jdk1.3.0_02\jre\classes, thinking that this path was searched by default (b/c that's what the documentation claims.) But, my Test class was not able to instantiate it directly until I specifically added the -Xbootclasspath option, but even then my Policy class is not used. In fact, it seems to still be using the default Policy implementation and still respects entries in the java.policy file even though my custom security.MyPolicy class does not do this.
In general, the behavior I'm seeing (we're seeing?) is consistent with the -Dpolicy.provider being ignored completely. I get the same behavior if I set this to "asdf". So this must be wrong somehow, even though it is consistent with all the documentation I can find...