Synchronous HTTP call in Netty - http

My app receives an HTTP request, and in the middle of the pipeline, a call is made to another server for supporting information. The initial HTTP request can't continue through the pipeline until that response comes back. I can't use the awaitUninterruptability() from an I/O thread, so what's the best approach to make these calls so I don't block Netty's event loop, but put the client's pipeline on hold until my call out returns and I tell the pipeline to continue on?

Ryan this does not sound like a good idea..
I think you should better use something like that:
public class HttpHandler extends SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler{
#Override
public void messageReceived(final ChannelHandlerContext ctx, final MessageEvent e) throws Exception {
otherChannel.write(yourRequet).addListener(new ChannelFutureListener() {
public void operationComplete(ChannelFuture future) throws Exception {
// once the write is done we can continue in the pipeline
ctx.sendUpstream(e);
}
});
// the event stops here to get processed
}
}
If you need to wait for the response then you will need to handle it in another SimpleChannelUpstreamHandler. But I think you get the idea..

I guess you need an ExecutionHandler.

Related

gRPC client failing with "CANCELLED: io.grpc.Context was cancelled without error"

I have a gRPC server written in C++ and a client written in Java.
Everything was working fine using a blocking stub. Then I decided that I want to change one of the calls to be asynchronous, so I created an additional stub in my client, this one is created with newStub(channel) as opposed to newBlockingStub(channel). I didn't make any changes on the server side. This is a simple unary RPC call.
So I changed
Empty response = blockingStub.callMethod(request);
to
asyncStub.callMethod(request, new StreamObserver<Empty>() {
#Override
public void onNext(Empty response) {
logInfo("asyncStub.callMethod.onNext");
}
#Override
public void onError(Throwable throwable) {
logError("asyncStub.callMethod.onError " + throwable.getMessage());
}
#Override
public void onCompleted() {
logInfo("asyncStub.callMethod.onCompleted");
}
});
Ever since then, onError is called when I use this RPC (Most of the time) and the error it gives is "CANCELLED: io.grpc.Context was cancelled without error". I read about forking Context objects when making an RPC call from within an RPC call, but that's not the case here. Also, the Context seems to be a server side object, I don't see how it relates to the client. Is this a server side error propagating back to the client? On the server side everything seems to complete successfully, so I'm at a loss as to why this is happening. Inserting a 1ms sleep after calling asyncStub.callMethod seems to make this issue go away, but defeats the purpose. Any and all help in understanding this would be greatly appreciated.
Some notes:
The processing time on the server side is around 1 microsecond
Until now, the round trip time for the blocking call was several hundred microseconds (This is the time I'm trying to cut down, as this is essentially a void function, so I don't need to wait for a response)
This method is called multiple times in a row, so before it used to wait until the previous one finished, now they just fire off one after the other.
Some snippets from the proto file:
service EventHandler {
rpc callMethod(Msg) returns (Empty) {}
}
message Msg {
uint64 fieldA = 1;
int32 fieldB = 2;
string fieldC = 3;
string fieldD = 4;
}
message Empty {
}
So it turns out that I was wrong. The context object is used by the client too.
The solution was to do the following:
Context newContext = Context.current().fork();
Context origContext = newContext.attach();
try {
// Call async RPC here
} finally {
newContext.detach(origContext);
}
Hopefully this can help someone else in the future.

Regulate network calls in SyncAdapter onPerformSync

I m sending several retrofit calls via SyncAdapter onPerformSync and I m trying to regulate http calls by sending out via a try/catch sleep statement. However, this is blocking the UI and will be not responsive only after all calls are done.
What is a better way to regulate network calls (with a sleep timer) in background in onPerformSync without blocking UI?
#Override
public void onPerformSync(Account account, Bundle extras, String authority, ContentProviderClient provider, SyncResult syncResult) {
String baseUrl = BuildConfig.API_BASE_URL;
Retrofit retrofit = new Retrofit.Builder()
.baseUrl(baseUrl)
.addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create())
.build();
service = retrofit.create(HTTPService.class);
Call<RetroFitModel> RetroFitModelCall = service.getRetroFit(apiKey, sortOrder);
RetroFitModelCall.enqueue(new Callback<RetroFitModel>() {
#Override
public void onResponse(Response<RetroFitModel> response) {
if (!response.isSuccess()) {
} else {
List<RetroFitResult> retrofitResultList = response.body().getResults();
Utility.storeList(getContext(), retrofitResultList);
for (final RetroFitResult result : retrofitResultList) {
RetroFitReview(result.getId(), service);
try {
// Sleep for SLEEP_TIME before running RetroFitReports & RetroFitTime
Thread.sleep(SLEEP_TIME);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
RetroFitReports(result.getId(), service);
RetroFitTime(result.getId(), service);
}
}
}
#Override
public void onFailure(Throwable t) {
Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error: " + t.getMessage());
}
});
}
}
The "onPerformSync" code is executed within the "SyncAdapterThread" thread, not within the Main UI thread. However this could change when making asynchronous calls with callbacks (which is our case here).
Here you are using an asynchronous call of the Retrofit "call.enqueue" method, and this has an impact on thread execution. The question we need to ask at this point:
Where callback methods are going to be executed?
To get the answer to this question, we have to determine which Looper is going to be used by the Handler that will post callbacks.
In case we are playing with handlers ourselves, we can define the looper, the handler and how to process messages/runnables between handlers. But this time it is different because we are using a third party framework (Retrofit). So we have to know which looper used by Retrofit?
Please note that if Retrofit didn't already define his looper, you
could have caught an exception saying that you need a looper to
process callbacks. In other words, an asynchronous call needs to be in
a looper thread in order to post callbacks back to the thread from
where it was executed.
According to the code source of Retrofit (Platform.java):
static class Android extends Platform {
#Override CallAdapter.Factory defaultCallAdapterFactory(Executor callbackExecutor) {
if (callbackExecutor == null) {
callbackExecutor = new MainThreadExecutor();
}
return new ExecutorCallAdapterFactory(callbackExecutor);
}
static class MainThreadExecutor implements Executor {
private final Handler handler = new Handler(Looper.getMainLooper());
#Override public void execute(Runnable r) {
handler.post(r);
}
}
}
You can notice "Looper.getMainLooper()", which means that Retrofit will post messages/runnables into the main thread message queue (you can do research on this for further detailed explanation). Thus the posted message/runnable will be handled by the main thread.
So that being said, the onResponse/onFailure callbacks will be executed in the main thread. And it's going to block the UI, if you are doing too much work (Thread.sleep(SLEEP_TIME);). You can check it by yourself: just make a breakpoint in "onResponse" callback and check in which thread it is running.
So how to handle this situation? (the answer to your question about Retrofit use)
Since we are already in a background thread (SyncAdapterThread), so there is no need to make asynchronous calls in your case. Just make a Retrofit synchronous call and then process the result, or log a failure. This way, you will not block the UI.

Set default timeout in all asynchronous requests

I'm using #Suspended AsyncResponse response in my requests and starting threads to process the request. When the process finishes, I'm trying to resume the response but RestEasy is marking the request as done because the request thread has finished and no timeout was set in the response. If I set timeout, it works fine but I would need to set the timeout in every asynchronous request I want want to implement. Is there anyway to horizontally set the timeout to all my suspended AsyncRequests?
Unfortunately, the JAX-RS 2.0 specification, the RESTEasy documentation and the Jersey documentation don't mention anything about setting a default timeout for the AsyncResponse.
The Jersey documentation mentions the following:
By default, there is no timeout defined on the suspended AsyncResponse instance. A custom timeout and timeout event handler may be defined using setTimeoutHandler(TimeoutHandler) and setTimeout(long, TimeUnit) methods. The setTimeoutHandler(TimeoutHandler) method defines the handler that will be invoked when timeout is reached. The handler resumes the response with the response code 503 (from Response.Status.SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE). A timeout interval can be also defined without specifying a custom timeout handler (using just the setTimeout(long, TimeUnit) method).
So, the solution won't be different from the solution you are already using:
#GET
public void longRunningOperation(#Suspended final AsyncResponse asyncResponse) {
// Register a timeout handler
asyncResponse.setTimeoutHandler(new TimeoutHandler() {
#Override
public void handleTimeout(AsyncResponse asyncResponse) {
asyncResponse.resume(Response.status(SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE)
.entity("Operation timed out. Please try again.").build());
}
});
// Set timeout
asyncResponse.setTimeout(15, SECONDS);
// Execute long running operation in new thread
executor.execute(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
executeLongRunningOp();
asyncResponse.resume("Hello async world!");
}
});
}

How to call properly HTTP client from HTTP server request handler in netty?

I am developing custom HTTP server with netty 3.3.1.
I need to implement something like this
HTTP Server receives request
HTTP Server parses it and invokes HTTP request as a client to other machine
HTTP Server waits for the response of request sent in (2)
HTTP Server sends response to request from (1) based on what had received in (3)
It means that client request (2) has to behave as synchronous.
What I wrote is based on HttpSnoopClient example but it does not work, because I receive
java.lang.IllegalStateException:
await*() in I/O thread causes a dead lock or sudden performance drop. Use addListener() instead or call await*() from a different thread.
I've refactored the code from the example mentioned above and now it looks more less like this (starting from line 7f of HttpSnoopClient):
ChannelFuture future = bootstrap.connect(new InetSocketAddress(host, port));
future.addListener(new ChannelFutureListener() {
public void operationComplete(ChannelFuture future) {
if (!future.isSuccess()) {
System.err.println("Cannot connect");
future.getCause().printStackTrace();
bootstrap.releaseExternalResources();
return;
}
System.err.println("Connected");
Channel channel = future.getChannel();
// Send the HTTP request.
channel.write(request);
channel.close();
// Wait for the server to close the connection.
channel.getCloseFuture().addListener(new ChannelFutureListener() {
public void operationComplete(ChannelFuture future) {
System.err.println("Disconnected");
bootstrap.releaseExternalResources(); // DOES NOT WORK?
}
});
}
});
}
}
The run() command from the above example is invoked in the messageReceived function of my herver handler.
So it became asynchronous and avoid await* functions. Request is invoked properly. But - for uknown reason for me - the line
bootstrap.releaseExternalResources(); // DOES NOT WORK?
does not work. It throws an exception saying that I cannot kill the thread I am currently using (which sounds reasonable, but still does not give me an answer how to do that in a different way).
I am also not sure is this a correct approach?
Maybe you can recommend a tutorial of such event programming techniques in netty? How to deal - in general - with a few asynchronous requests that has to be invoked in specified order and wait for each other?
Thank you,
If you really want to release the bootstrap on close you can do it like this:
channel.getCloseFuture().addListener(new ChannelFutureListener() {
public void operationComplete(ChannelFuture future) {
System.err.println("Disconnected");
new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
bootstrap.releaseExternalResources();
}
}).start();
}
});

Apache Commons HTTPClient 3.x leaving connections open

I'm using HttpClient to execute a PostMethod against a remote servlet and for some reason a lot of my connections are hanging open and hogging up all of my server's connections.
Here's more info about the architecture
GWT client calls into a GWT Service
GWT service instantiates a HttpClient, creates a PostMethod and has the client execute the method
it then gets the input stream by calling method.getResponseBodyAsStream() and writes it out to a byte array
it then closes the input stream and flushes the byte array output stream, does a few more lines of code and then calls method.releaseConnection()
There has to be something obvious I'm overlooking that's causing this. If I perform a GET in a browser to the same service, the connections close immediately but something about HTTPClient is causing them to hang open.
You need to call HttpMethodBase#releaseConnection(). If you return a InputStream to be used later, a simple way is to wrap it by a anonymous FilterInputStream overwriting close():
final HttpMethodBase method = ...;
return new FilterInputStream(method.getResponseBodyAsStream())
{
public void close() throws IOException
{
try {
super.close();
} finally {
method.releaseConnection();
}
}
};

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