Automatic repository shutdown
-----------------------------

         Key: JCR-245
         URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JCR-245
     Project: Jackrabbit
        Type: New Feature
  Components: core  
    Reporter: Jukka Zitting


Currently Jackrabbit relies on two mechanisms for safely shutting down a 
repository:

    1) client application invoking RepositoryImpl.shutdown(), or
    2) the shutdown hook installed by RepositoryImpl being run

Both of these mechanisms have problems:

    1) The shutdown() method is not a part of the JCR API, thus making the 
client application depend on a Jackrabbit-specific feature
    2) In some cases the shutdown hook is not properly run (see issues JCR-120 
and JCR-233)

I think the JCR spec thinks of the Repository and Session interfaces as being 
somewhat similar to the JDBC DataSource and Connection interfaces. The 
Repository instances have no real lifecycle methods while the Session instances 
have clearly specified login and logout steps. (DataSource.getConnection() = 
Repository.login(), Session.logout() = Connection.close()) However the 
Jackrabbit implementation defines an explicit lifecycle for the RepositoryImpl 
instances.

This causes problems especially for container environments (JNDI, Spring) where 
it is hard or even impossible to specify a shutdown mechanism for resource 
factories like the Repository instances. The current solution for such 
environments is to use a shutdown hook, but as reported this solution does not 
work perfectly in all cases.

How about if we bound the RepositoryImpl lifecycle to the lifecycles of the 
instantiated Sessions. A RepositoryImpl instance could initialize (and lock) 
the repository when the first session is opened and automatically shut down 
when the last session has logged out. As long as the sessions are properly 
logged out (or finalized by the garbage collector) there would be no need for 
an explicitly RepositoryImpl.shutdown() call. The current behaviour of 
pre-initializing the repository and shutting down during a shutdown hook could 
be enabled with a configuration option for environments (like global JNDI 
resources) in which the shutdown hooks work well.


-- 
This message is automatically generated by JIRA.
-
If you think it was sent incorrectly contact one of the administrators:
   http://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/Administrators.jspa
-
For more information on JIRA, see:
   http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

Reply via email to