[omniORB-dev] Bidirectional omniORBpy

[Luke Tunmer]

I'm having problems getting bidirectional support to work on a Python 
client talking to a Python server. We need this to work through 
Firewalls and VPN.

I'm following the instructions in the omniORBpy User's Guide. The 
connection was proving to be very unreliable - about one in 5 (or less) 
completed successfully, while the rest threw the following exception:


	COMM_FAILURE: Minor: COMM_FAILURE_WaitingForReply, COMPLETED_MAYBE.
	omniORB: From endpoint: giop:tcp:127.0.0.1:6437. Detected GIOP 			1.2 
protocol error in input message. Connection is closed.


This is what the client side does:

         new_args = sys.argv[:]
         new_args.append("-ORBofferBiDirectionalGIOP")
         new_args.append("1")
         new_args.append("-ORBclientTransportRule")
         new_args.append("* unix,tcp,ssl,bidir")

         orb = CORBA.ORB_init(new_args, CORBA.ORB_ID)

         rootPOA = orb.resolve_initial_references("RootPOA")
         poaManager = rootPOA._get_the_POAManager()
         poaManager.activate()

         policies = [ BiDirPolicy.BidirectionalPolicy(BiDirPolicy.BOTH) ]
         poa = rootPOA.create_POA("BiDirPOA", poaManager, policies)
         bidir_poaManager = poa._get_the_POAManager()
         bidir_poaManager.activate()


And the server side does this:

     args.append("-ORBacceptBiDirectionalGIOP")
     args.append("1")
     args.append("-ORBserverTransportRule")
     args.append("* tcp,unix,ssl,bidir")

     # Initialise the ORB
     orb = CORBA.ORB_init(args, CORBA.ORB_ID)

     # Find the root POA
     poa = orb.resolve_initial_references("RootPOA")
     poa_man = poa._get_the_POAManager()
     poa_man.activate()

     poa_ins = orb.resolve_initial_references("omniINSPOA")
     pman_ins = poa_ins._get_the_POAManager()
     pman_ins.activate()

     policies = [ BiDirPolicy.BidirectionalPolicy(BiDirPolicy.BOTH) ]
     bidir_poa = poa.create_POA("BidDirPOA", poa_man, policies)
     bidir_poaManager = bidir_poa._get_the_POAManager()
     bidir_poaManager.activate()

     server_i = Trigcompiler_i(options.debug_level)
     server_ref = bidir_poa.activate_object(server_i)

     root_i = RootFinder_i(server_ref)
     poa_ins.activate_object_with_id("TrigcompilerRoot", root_i)


The client attempts to connect to the server using a corbaloc object 
reference.

The server side is publishing a simple object reference on the 
omniINSPOA (which does not have the bidirectional policy set on it), and 
the client fails to talk to it - it hasn't even got to the point of 
trying to get to the object activated on the bidirectional POA.


We are using OmniPy 2.3, OmniOrb 4.0.3, Windows XP.

Any help, or pointers to what I can try next would be much appreciated.

Regards
Luke