Class Channel

java.lang.Object
hudson.remoting.Channel
All Implemented Interfaces:
VirtualChannel, Closeable, AutoCloseable

public class Channel extends Object implements VirtualChannel, Closeable
Represents a communication channel to the remote peer.

A Channel is a mechanism for two JVMs to communicate over bi-directional InputStream/OutputStream pair. Channel represents an endpoint of the stream, and thus two Channels are always used in a pair.

Communication is established as soon as two Channel instances are created at the end fo the stream pair until the stream is terminated via close().

The basic unit of remoting is an executable Callable object. An application can create a Callable object, and execute it remotely by using the call(Callable) method or callAsync(Callable) method.

In this sense, Channel is a mechanism to delegate/offload computation to other JVMs and somewhat like an agent system. This is bit different from remoting technologies like CORBA or web services, where the server exposes a certain functionality that clients invoke.

Callable object, as well as the return value / exceptions, are transported by using Java serialization. All the necessary class files are also shipped over Channel on-demand, so there's no need to pre-deploy such classes on both JVMs.

Implementor's Note

Channel builds its features in a layered model. Its higher-layer features are built on top of its lower-layer features, and they are called layer-0, layer-1, etc.

  • Layer 0: See Command for more details. This is for higher-level features, and not likely useful for applications directly.
  • Layer 1: See Request for more details. This is for higher-level features, and not likely useful for applications directly.
Author:
Kohsuke Kawaguchi
  • Field Details

    • executor

      @Restricted(org.kohsuke.accmod.restrictions.NoExternalUse.class) public final ExecutorService executor
    • classLoadingTime

      public final AtomicLong classLoadingTime
      Total number of nanoseconds spent for remote class loading.

      Remote code execution often results in classloading activity (more precisely, when the remote peer requests some computation on this channel, this channel often has to load necessary classes from the remote peer.)

      This counter represents the total amount of time this channel had to spend loading classes from the remote peer. The time measurement doesn't include the time locally spent to actually define the class (as the local classloading would have incurred the same cost.)

    • classLoadingCount

      public final AtomicInteger classLoadingCount
      Total counts of remote classloading activities. Used in a pair with classLoadingTime.
    • classLoadingPrefetchCacheCount

      public final AtomicInteger classLoadingPrefetchCacheCount
      Prefetch cache hits. Out of all the counts in classLoadingCount, how many times were we able to resolve them by ourselves, saving a remote roundtrip call?
      Since:
      2.24
    • resourceLoadingTime

      public final AtomicLong resourceLoadingTime
      Total number of nanoseconds spent for remote resource loading.
      See Also:
    • resourceLoadingCount

      public final AtomicInteger resourceLoadingCount
      Total count of remote resource loading.
      See Also:
    • remoteCapability

      public final Capability remoteCapability
      Capability of the remote Channel.
    • PIPE_WINDOW_SIZE

      public static final int PIPE_WINDOW_SIZE
      Default pipe window size.

      This controls the amount of bytes that can be in flight. Value too small would fail to efficiently utilize a high-latency/large-bandwidth network, but a value too large would cause the risk of a large memory consumption when a pipe clogs (that is, the receiver isn't consuming bytes we are sending fast enough.)

      If we have a gigabit ethernet (with effective transfer rate of 100M bps) and 20ms latency, the pipe will hold (100M bits/sec * 0.02sec / 8 bits/byte = 0.25MB. So 1MB or so is big enough for most network, and hopefully this is an acceptable enough memory consumption in case of clogging.

      See Also:
      • PipeWindow
  • Constructor Details

  • Method Details

    • isOutClosed

      public boolean isOutClosed()
      Is the sender side of the transport already closed?
    • getSenderCloseCause

      @CheckForNull public final Throwable getSenderCloseCause()
      Get why the sender side of the channel has been closed.
      Returns:
      Close cause or null if the sender side is active. null result does not guarantee that the channel is actually operational.
      Since:
      3.11
    • isClosingOrClosed

      public boolean isClosingOrClosed()
      Returns true if the channel is either in the process of closing down or has closed down. If the result is true, it means that the channel will be closed at some point by Remoting, and that it makes no sense to send any new UserRequests to the remote side. Invocations like call(Callable) and callAsync(Callable) will just fail as well.
      Since:
      2.33
    • getCloseRequestCause

      @CheckForNull public Throwable getCloseRequestCause()
      Gets cause of the close request.
      Returns:
      outClosed if not null, value of the transient cache closeRequestCause otherwise. The latter one may show random cause in the case of race conditions.
      Since:
      3.11
    • export

      public <T> T export(Class<T> type, T instance)
      Exports an object for remoting to the other Channel by creating a remotable proxy. The returned reference must be kept if there is ongoing operation on the remote side. Once it is released, the exported object will be deallocated as well. Please keep in mind that the object may be also released earlier than expected by JVM (e.g. see JENKINS-23271).
      Specified by:
      export in interface VirtualChannel
      Type Parameters:
      T - Type
      Parameters:
      type - Interface to be remoted.
      instance - Instance to be exported. null instances won't be exported to the remote instance.

      All the parameters and return values must be serializable.

      Returns:
      the proxy object that implements T. This object can be transferred to the other Channel, and calling methods on it from the remote side will invoke the same method on the given local instance object. null if the input instance is null.
    • pin

      public void pin(@NonNull Object instance)
      Increase reference count so much to effectively prevent de-allocation.
      Parameters:
      instance - Instance to be pinned
    • pinClassLoader

      public void pinClassLoader(ClassLoader cl)
      Pin down the exported classloader.
    • preloadJar

      public boolean preloadJar(Callable<?,?> classLoaderRef, Class<?>... classesInJar) throws IOException, InterruptedException
      Preloads jar files on the remote side.

      This is a performance improvement method that can be safely ignored if your goal is just to make things working.

      Normally, classes are transferred over the network one at a time, on-demand. This design is mainly driven by how Java classloading works — we can't predict what classes will be necessarily upfront very easily.

      Classes are loaded only once, so for long-running Channel, this is normally an acceptable overhead. But sometimes, for example when a channel is short-lived, or when you know that you'll need a majority of classes in certain jar files, then it is more efficient to send a whole jar file over the network upfront and thereby avoiding individual class transfer over the network.

      That is what this method does. It ensures that a series of jar files are copied to the remote side (AKA "preloading.") Classloading will consult the preloaded jars before performing network transfer of class files.

      Beware that this method is not useful in all configurations. If a RemoteClassLoader has another RemoteClassLoader as a parent, which would be typical, then preloading a JAR in it will not reduce network round-trips: each class load still has to call loadClass on the parent, which will wind up checking the remote side just to get a negative answer.

      Parameters:
      classLoaderRef - This parameter is used to identify the remote classloader that will prefetch the specified jar files. That is, prefetching will ensure that prefetched jars will kick in when this Callable object is actually executed remote side.

      RemoteClassLoaders are created wisely, one per local ClassLoader, so this parameter doesn't have to be exactly the same Callable to be executed later — it just has to be of the same class.

      classesInJar - Class objects that identify jar files to be preloaded. Jar files that contain the specified classes will be preloaded into the remote peer. You just need to specify one class per one jar.
      Returns:
      true if the preloading actually happened. false if all the jars are already preloaded. This method is implemented in such a way that unnecessary jar file transfer will be avoided, and the return value will tell you if this optimization kicked in. Under normal circumstances your program shouldn't depend on this return value. It's just a hint.
      Throws:
      IOException - if the preloading fails.
      InterruptedException
    • preloadJar

      public boolean preloadJar(ClassLoader local, Class<?>... classesInJar) throws IOException, InterruptedException
      Throws:
      IOException
      InterruptedException
    • preloadJar

      public boolean preloadJar(ClassLoader local, URL... jars) throws IOException, InterruptedException
      Throws:
      IOException
      InterruptedException
    • getJarCache

      @CheckForNull public JarCache getJarCache()
      If this channel is built with jar file caching, return the object that manages this cache.
      Returns:
      JAR Cache object. null if JAR caching is disabled
      Since:
      2.24, 3.10 JAR Cache is Nonnull, 3.12 JAR Cache made nullable again due to JENKINS-45755
    • setJarCache

      public void setJarCache(@NonNull JarCache jarCache)
      You can change the JarCache while the channel is in operation, but doing so doesn't impact RemoteClassLoaders that are already created. So to best avoid performance loss due to race condition, please set a JarCache in the constructor, unless your call sequence guarantees that you call this method before remote classes are loaded.
      Parameters:
      jarCache - New JAR Cache to be used. Cannot be null, JAR Cache disabling on a running channel is not supported.
      Since:
      2.24
    • call

      public <V, T extends Throwable> V call(Callable<V,T> callable) throws IOException, T, InterruptedException
      Makes a remote procedure call.

      Sends Callable to the remote system, executes it, and returns its result. Such calls will be considered as user-space requests. If the channel cannot execute the requests (e.g. when it is being closed), the operations may be rejected even if the channel is still active.

      Specified by:
      call in interface VirtualChannel
      Parameters:
      callable - Callable to be executed
      Throws:
      IOException - If there's any error in the communication between Channels.
      T - User exception defined by the callable
      InterruptedException - If the current thread is interrupted while waiting for the completion.
    • callAsync

      public <V, T extends Throwable> Future<V> callAsync(Callable<V,T> callable) throws IOException
      Makes an asynchronous remote procedure call.

      Similar to VirtualChannel.call(Callable) but returns immediately. The result of the Callable can be obtained through the Future object. Such calls will be considered as user-space requests. If the channel cannot execute the requests (e.g. when it is being closed), the operations may be rejected even if the channel is still active.

      Specified by:
      callAsync in interface VirtualChannel
      Returns:
      The Future object that can be used to wait for the completion.
      Throws:
      IOException - If there's an error during the communication.
    • terminate

      public void terminate(@NonNull IOException e)
      Aborts the connection in response to an error. This is an SPI for CommandTransport implementation to notify Channel when the underlying connection is severed. Once the call is called closeRequested will be set immediately to prevent further executions of UserRequests.
      Parameters:
      e - The error that caused the connection to be aborted. Never null.
    • addListener

      public void addListener(Channel.Listener l)
      Registers a new Channel.Listener.
      See Also:
    • removeListener

      public boolean removeListener(Channel.Listener l)
      Removes a listener.
      Returns:
      false if the given listener has not been registered to begin with.
    • addLocalExecutionInterceptor

      public void addLocalExecutionInterceptor(CallableDecorator decorator)
      Adds a CallableDecorator that gets a chance to decorate every Callables that run locally sent by the other peer. This is useful to tweak the environment those closures are run, such as setting up the thread context environment.
    • removeLocalExecutionInterceptor

      public void removeLocalExecutionInterceptor(CallableDecorator decorator)
      Removes the filter introduced by addLocalExecutionInterceptor(CallableDecorator).
    • addLocalExecutionInterceptor

      @Deprecated public void addLocalExecutionInterceptor(CallableFilter filter)
    • removeLocalExecutionInterceptor

      @Deprecated public void removeLocalExecutionInterceptor(CallableFilter filter)
    • join

      public void join() throws InterruptedException
      Waits for this Channel to be closed down. The close-down of a Channel might be initiated locally or remotely.
      Specified by:
      join in interface VirtualChannel
      Throws:
      InterruptedException - If the current thread is interrupted while waiting for the completion.
    • isInClosed

      public boolean isInClosed()
      If the receiving end of the channel is closed (that is, if we are guaranteed to receive nothing further), this method returns true.
    • isRestricted

      @Deprecated public boolean isRestricted()
      Deprecated.
      Use methods like isRemoteClassLoadingAllowed() and isArbitraryCallableAllowed() to test individual features.
      Returns true if this channel has any of the security restrictions enabled.
    • setRestricted

      @Deprecated public void setRestricted(boolean b)
      Deprecated.
      Use methods like setRemoteClassLoadingAllowed(boolean) and setArbitraryCallableAllowed(boolean) to control individual features.
      Activates/disables all the security restriction mode.
    • isRemoteClassLoadingAllowed

      public boolean isRemoteClassLoadingAllowed()
      Since:
      2.47
    • setRemoteClassLoadingAllowed

      public void setRemoteClassLoadingAllowed(boolean b)
      Controls whether or not this channel is willing to load classes from the other side. The default is on.
      Since:
      2.47
    • isArbitraryCallableAllowed

      public boolean isArbitraryCallableAllowed()
      Since:
      2.47
    • setArbitraryCallableAllowed

      public void setArbitraryCallableAllowed(boolean b)
      Since:
      2.47
      See Also:
    • setMaximumBytecodeLevel

      public void setMaximumBytecodeLevel(short level) throws IOException, InterruptedException
      Sets the maximum bytecode version (~ JDK) that we expect this channel to be able to load. If attempts are made to load remote classes using newer bytecode, they are immediately rejected, even if the remote JVM is actually new enough to load it. This helps maintain compatibility by making tests fail immediately without the need for an old JDK installation. By default, the remote class loader will try to load any bytecode version.
      Parameters:
      level - e.g. 5 for JDK 5 (the minimum sensible value)
      Throws:
      IOException
      InterruptedException
      Since:
      2.29
    • join

      public void join(long timeout) throws InterruptedException
      Waits for this Channel to be closed down, but only up the given milliseconds.
      Specified by:
      join in interface VirtualChannel
      Parameters:
      timeout - TImeout in milliseconds
      Throws:
      InterruptedException - If the current thread is interrupted while waiting for the completion.
      Since:
      1.299
    • resetPerformanceCounters

      public void resetPerformanceCounters()
      Resets all the performance counters.
    • dumpPerformanceCounters

      public void dumpPerformanceCounters(PrintWriter w) throws IOException
      Print the performance counters.
      Parameters:
      w - Output writer
      Throws:
      IOException
      Since:
      2.24
    • dumpDiagnostics

      @Restricted(org.kohsuke.accmod.restrictions.NoExternalUse.class) public void dumpDiagnostics(@NonNull PrintWriter w) throws IOException
      Print the diagnostic information.

      Here's how you interpret these metrics:

      Created
      When the channel was created, which is more or less the same thing as when the channel is connected.
      Commands sent
      Number of Command objects sent to the other side. More specifically, number of commands successfully passed to transport, which means data was written to socket with ClassicCommandTransport but just buffered for write with NioChannelHub. If you have access to the remoting diagnostics of the other side of the channel, then you can compare this with "commandsReceived" metrics of the other side to see how many commands are in transit in transport. If commandsSent==commandsReceived, then no command is in transit.
      Commands received
      Number of Command objects received from the other side. More precisely, number of commands reported from transport. So for example, if data is still buffered somewhere in the networking stack, it won't be counted here.
      Last command sent
      The timestamp in which the last command was sent to the other side. The timestamp in which lastCommandSentAt was updated.
      Last command received
      The timestamp in which the last command was sent to the other side. The timestamp in which lastCommandReceivedAt was updated.
      Pending outgoing calls
      Number of RPC calls (e.g., method call through a proxy) that are made but not returned yet. If you have the remoting diagnostics of the other side, you can compare this number with "pending incoming calls" on the other side to see how many RPC calls are executing vs in flight. "one side's incoming calls" < "the other side's outgoing calls" indicates some RPC requests or responses are passing through the network layer, and mismatch between "# of commands sent" vs "# of commands received" can give some indication of whether it is request or response that's in flight.
      Pending incoming calls
      The reverse of "pending outgoing calls". Number of RPC calls (e.g., method call through a proxy) that the other side has made to us but not yet returned yet.
      Parameters:
      w - Output destination
      Throws:
      IOException - Error while creating or writing the channel information
      Since:
      2.62.3 - stable 2.x (restricted), 3.1
    • close

      public void close() throws IOException
      Performs an orderly shut down of this channel (and the remote peer.)
      Specified by:
      close in interface AutoCloseable
      Specified by:
      close in interface Closeable
      Specified by:
      close in interface VirtualChannel
      Throws:
      IOException - if the orderly shut-down failed.
    • close

      public void close(@CheckForNull Throwable diagnosis) throws IOException
      Closes the channel. Once the call is called closeRequested will be set immediately to prevent further executions of UserRequests.
      Parameters:
      diagnosis - If someone (either this side or the other side) tries to use a channel that's already closed, they'll get a stack trace indicating that the channel has already been closed. This diagnosis, if provided, will further chained to that exception, providing more contextual information about why the channel was closed.
      Throws:
      IOException
      Since:
      2.8
    • getProperty

      public Object getProperty(Object key)
      Gets the application specific property set by setProperty(Object, Object). These properties are also accessible from the remote channel via getRemoteProperty(Object).

      This mechanism can be used for one side to discover contextual objects created by the other JVM (as opposed to executing Callable, which cannot have any reference to the context of the remote Channel.

      Parameters:
      key - Key
      Returns:
      The property or null if there is no property for the specified key
    • getProperty

      public <T> T getProperty(ChannelProperty<T> key)
    • waitForProperty

      @NonNull public Object waitForProperty(@NonNull Object key) throws InterruptedException
      Works like getProperty(Object) but wait until some value is set by someone.
      Parameters:
      key - Property key
      Throws:
      IllegalStateException - if the channel is closed. The idea is that channel properties are expected to be the coordination mechanism between two sides of the channel, and this method in particular is a way of one side to wait for the set by the other side of the channel (via waitForRemoteProperty(Object). If we don't abort after the channel shutdown, this method will block forever.
      InterruptedException
    • waitForProperty

      public <T> T waitForProperty(ChannelProperty<T> key) throws InterruptedException
      Throws:
      InterruptedException
    • setProperty

      @CheckForNull public Object setProperty(@NonNull Object key, @CheckForNull Object value)
      Sets the property value on this side of the channel.
      Parameters:
      key - Property key
      value - Value to set. null removes the existing entry without adding a new one.
      Returns:
      Old property value or null if it was not set
      See Also:
    • setProperty

      public <T> T setProperty(ChannelProperty<T> key, T value)
    • getRemoteProperty

      @CheckForNull public Object getRemoteProperty(Object key)
      Gets the property set on the remote peer.
      Returns:
      null if the property of the said key isn't set.
    • getRemoteProperty

      @CheckForNull public <T> T getRemoteProperty(ChannelProperty<T> key)
    • waitForRemoteProperty

      public Object waitForRemoteProperty(Object key) throws InterruptedException
      Gets the property set on the remote peer. This method blocks until the property is set by the remote peer.
      Throws:
      InterruptedException
    • waitForRemoteProperty

      @Deprecated public <T> T waitForRemoteProperty(ChannelProperty<T> key) throws InterruptedException
      Deprecated.
      Because ChannelProperty is identity-equality, this method would never work. This is a design error.
      Throws:
      InterruptedException
    • getUnderlyingOutput

      @Deprecated public OutputStream getUnderlyingOutput()
      Deprecated.
      Future version of the remoting module may add other modes of creating channel that doesn't involve stream pair. Therefore, we aren't committing to this method. This method isn't a part of the committed API of the channel class.
      Obtain the output stream passed to the constructor.
      Returns:
      While the current version always return a non-null value, the caller must not make that assumption for the above reason. This method may return null in the future version to indicate that the Channel is not sitting on top of a stream pair.
    • createLocalToRemotePortForwarding

      @Deprecated public ListeningPort createLocalToRemotePortForwarding(int recvPort, String forwardHost, int forwardPort) throws IOException, InterruptedException
      Deprecated.
      as of 3.39
      Starts a local to remote port forwarding (the equivalent of "ssh -L").
      Parameters:
      recvPort - The port on this local machine that we'll listen to. 0 to let OS pick a random available port. If you specify 0, use ListeningPort.getPort() to figure out the actual assigned port.
      forwardHost - The remote host that the connection will be forwarded to. Connection to this host will be made from the other JVM that this Channel represents.
      forwardPort - The remote port that the connection will be forwarded to.
      Returns:
      Created PortForwarder
      Throws:
      IOException
      InterruptedException
    • createRemoteToLocalPortForwarding

      @Deprecated public ListeningPort createRemoteToLocalPortForwarding(int recvPort, String forwardHost, int forwardPort) throws IOException, InterruptedException
      Deprecated.
      as of 3.39
      Starts a remote to local port forwarding (the equivalent of "ssh -R").
      Parameters:
      recvPort - The port on the remote JVM (represented by this Channel) that we'll listen to. 0 to let OS pick a random available port. If you specify 0, use ListeningPort.getPort() to figure out the actual assigned port.
      forwardHost - The remote host that the connection will be forwarded to. Connection to this host will be made from this JVM.
      forwardPort - The remote port that the connection will be forwarded to.
      Returns:
      Created PortForwarder.
      Throws:
      IOException
      InterruptedException
    • syncIO

      public void syncIO() throws IOException, InterruptedException
      Blocks until all the I/O packets sent before this gets fully executed by the remote side, then return.
      Throws:
      IOException - If the remote doesn't support this operation, or if sync fails for other reasons.
      InterruptedException
    • syncLocalIO

      public void syncLocalIO() throws InterruptedException
      Description copied from interface: VirtualChannel
      Blocks until all the I/O packets sent from remote is fully locally executed, then return.
      Specified by:
      syncLocalIO in interface VirtualChannel
      Throws:
      InterruptedException
    • getName

      public String getName()
    • toString

      public String toString()
      Overrides:
      toString in class Object
    • dumpExportTable

      public void dumpExportTable(PrintWriter w) throws IOException
      Dumps the list of exported objects and their allocation traces to the given output.
      Throws:
      IOException
    • startExportRecording

      public hudson.remoting.ExportTable.ExportList startExportRecording()
    • getLastHeard

      public long getLastHeard()
      TODO: this is not safe against clock skew and is called from jenkins core (and potentially plugins)
      See Also:
      • lastCommandReceivedAt
    • current

      @CheckForNull public static Channel current()
      This method can be invoked during the serialization/deserialization of objects when they are transferred to the remote Channel, as well as during Callable.call() is invoked.
      Returns:
      null if the calling thread is not performing serialization.
    • currentOrFail

      @NonNull public static Channel currentOrFail() throws IllegalStateException
      Gets current channel or fails with IllegalStateException.
      Returns:
      Current channel
      Throws:
      IllegalStateException - the calling thread has no associated channel.
      Since:
      3.14
      See Also:
    • dumpDiagnosticsForAll

      @Restricted(org.kohsuke.accmod.restrictions.NoExternalUse.class) public static void dumpDiagnosticsForAll(@NonNull PrintWriter w)
      Calls dumpDiagnostics(PrintWriter) across all the active channels in this system. Used for diagnostics.
      Parameters:
      w - Output destination
      Since:
      2.62.3 - stable 2.x (restricted), 3.1
    • isClosedChannelException

      public static boolean isClosedChannelException(@CheckForNull Throwable t)
      Checks whether an exception seems to be related to a closed channel. Detects ChannelClosedException, ClosedChannelException, and EOFException anywhere in the exception or suppressed exception chain.