Using BC4J Session Bean in OC4J 10.1.3 with dynamic ports

Question

Hi Folks!
I've benn having trouble connecting my BC4J Session Bean to an Oracle 10gAS R3 server instance tha uses dynamic ports.
After migrating a BC4J/Struts/JSP application from 9iAS to 10gAS R3, I'm trying to connect from a client application to my instace in the server. The problem is that the instance uses dynamic ports, and whenever I deploy my application to the server, I've got to update the port number in the bc4j.xcfg file in the client application, wich has became impossible to maintain.
When I connect to an EJB in the same server, I use the instance name instead of the port number. However, when I do the same with BC4J, I get the following exception:
javax.naming.NamingException [Root exception is java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "OC4J_dvt20"]
     at oracle.jbo.client.remote.ejb.ias.AmHomeImpl.remoteLookup(AmHomeImpl.java:131)
     at oracle.jbo.client.remote.ejb.ias.AmHomeImpl.getRemoteApplicationModuleHome(AmHomeImpl.java:42)
     at oracle.jbo.client.remote.ejb.AbstractApplicationModuleHomeImpl.lookupUsingPlatformContext(AbstractApplicationModuleHomeImpl.java:82)
     at oracle.jbo.client.ejb.ApplicationModuleHomeImpl.<init>(ApplicationModuleHomeImpl.java:52)
     at oracle.jbo.client.remote.ejb.AbstractApplicationModuleHomeImpl.<init>(AbstractApplicationModuleHomeImpl.java:35)
     at oracle.jbo.client.remote.ejb.ias.AmHomeImpl.<init>(AmHomeImpl.java:35)
     at oracle.jbo.client.remote.ejb.ias.InitialContextImpl.createJboHome(InitialContextImpl.java:28)
     at oracle.jbo.common.JboInitialContext.lookup(JboInitialContext.java:77)
     at javax.naming.InitialContext.lookup(InitialContext.java:347)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.DefaultConnectionStrategy.createApplicationModule(DefaultConnectionStrategy.java:136)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.DefaultConnectionStrategy.createApplicationModule(DefaultConnectionStrategy.java:80)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.ApplicationPoolImpl.instantiateResource(ApplicationPoolImpl.java:2468)
     at oracle.jbo.pool.ResourcePool.createResource(ResourcePool.java:536)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.ApplicationPoolImpl.prepareApplicationModule(ApplicationPoolImpl.java:2094)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.ApplicationPoolImpl.doCheckout(ApplicationPoolImpl.java:1961)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.ApplicationPoolImpl.useApplicationModule(ApplicationPoolImpl.java:2793)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.SessionCookieImpl.useApplicationModule(SessionCookieImpl.java:453)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.SessionCookieImpl.useApplicationModule(SessionCookieImpl.java:424)
     at oracle.jbo.common.ampool.SessionCookieImpl.useApplicationModule(SessionCookieImpl.java:419)
     at oracle.jbo.client.Configuration.getApplicationModule(Configuration.java:1546)
     at oracle.jbo.client.Configuration.createRootApplicationModule(Configuration.java:1504)
     at oracle.jbo.client.Configuration.createRootApplicationModule(Configuration.java:1476)
     at pkg.TesteEjbMCT.findTLS(TesteEjbMCT.java:98)
     at pkg.TesteEjbMCT.main(TesteEjbMCT.java:51)
My question is: is there a way to configure my bc4j.xcfg, or another way to connect, in order to skip the use of the port number? Or a way to get the port number from the server before I connect?
Thanks in advance!!!

Answer 1

I've just found the solution from Steve Muench weblog, always useful by the way!
You can find the solution at this link http://radio.weblogs.com/0118231/stories/2004/05/07/handcodingDynamicDiscoveryOfEjbdeployedAppmodule.html
In summary, we need to use the class com.evermind.server.rmi.RMIInitialContextFactory, which supports dynamic lookup, and implement the lookup ourselves.
The code I've written to lookup the service is listed below:
public static ApplicationModule getAppModuleManutencao() {
try {
Context ctx = getContext();
ManutencaoFacadeHome home = (ManutencaoFacadeHome) ctx.lookup(EJB_MANUTENCAO_BEAN_NAME);
ApplicationModule am = ApplicationModuleProxy.create(home, null);
return am;
} catch (NamingException nex) {     
nex.printStackTrace();
return null;
private static InitialContext getContext() {   
try {     
Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, "com.evermind.server.rmi.RMIInitialContextFactory");
env.put(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, "admin");
env.put(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, "welcome");
env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, "opmn:ormi://dsv008:OC4J_dvt20/mct");
env.put(Context.SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION, "simple");
return new InitialContext(env);
}catch (NamingException e) {     
e.printStackTrace();
return null;
I hope this helps someone!!!
Cheers!