We want to deploy Servlet/JSP in JServ and call the EJB's deployed in iPlanet App Server 6.0 SP2. How do we make the getInitialContext Call be able to access the EJB's.

Question

Additionally what configurations do we need to make sure we have on JServ (Third party Servlet container) to make sure that the iPlanet EJB's can be accessed.

Answer 1

Let me preface my instructions with the comment that this isn't a good idea. Although the J2EE specification allows you seperate your web container from your EJB container, in practical deployments it is a bad idea. The overhead of doing RMI/IIOP calls to an external container as opposed to making inter-JVM calls means that you can expect roughly an order of magnitude less performance than if you colocate your web and EJB containers. (This is why all EJB containers are also web containers, or at least have the provision to install themselves in the same JVM as a web container.)
That said, if you do not have the option to move the servlets to iAS, you can access EJB's in iAS from JServ the same way that you would from any remote client. Take a look at the following information for more detail:
Chapter 9 of the developer's guide ( this shows you what changes you need to make to the remote JVM (at JServ) and in the EJB's that you are exposing).
The RMI/IIOP sample application. This gives you an example of how to access EJB's from outside the container.
(To answer your direct question, the following code will get the initial context. But if you don't take all of the other configuration steps, this code won't work:
env.put("java.naming.factory.initial", "com.sun.jndi.cosnaming.CNCtxFactory");
env.put("java.naming.provider.url", "iiop://" + host + ":"+port);
Context initial = new InitialContext(env);
I'd also suggest that you approach the task with the following approach. (Assuming that I haven't managed to convince you that this is a really bad idea.)
1. Get your EJB's working on iAS. Test them with servlet harnesses running on iAS.
2. Get your servlets working on JServ, if they aren't already.
3. Create a simple standalone Java application as a test harness for EJB's. Follow the RMI/IIOP instructions until you get this test harness working.
4. Create a simple servlet test harness in JServ to access your EJb's. Follow the JVM setup instrucitons until you get this working.
5. Actually integrate the EJB's with your production application.
I say this because there are about five trillion things that can go wrong in this process. Although the troubleshooting steps in the docs are helpful, I find that it helps to get one thing working at a time. It's very frustrating to spend a day trying to resolve JNDI issues only to find out that you have your CXS configured improperly.