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How do servlets work? Instantiation, sessions, shared variables and multithreading
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I need to know why the servlets are not thread safe ? And whats the reason that in Struts 2.0 framework controller servlet is thread safe ?
I need to know why the servlets are not thread safe ?
Servlet instances are inherently not thread safe because of the multi threaded nature of the Java programming language in general. The Java Virtual Machine supports executing the same code by multiple threads. This is a great performance benefit on machines which have multiple processors. This also allows the same code to be executed by multiple concurrent users without blocking each other.
Imagine a server with 4 processors wherein a normal servlet can handle 1000 requests per second. If that servlet were threadsafe, then the web application would act like as if it runs on a server with 1 processor wherein the servlet can handle only 250 requests per second (okay, it's not exactly like that, but you got the idea).
If you encounter threadsafety issues when using servlets, then it is your fault, not Java's nor Servlet's fault. You'd need to fix the servlet code as such that request or session scoped data is never assigned as an instance variable of the servlet. For an in-depth explanation, see also How do servlets work? Instantiation, sessions, shared variables and multithreading.
And whats the reason that in Struts 2.0 framework controller servlet is thread safe ?
It is not thread safe. You're confusing the Struts dispatcher servlet filter with Struts actions. The struts actions are re-created on every single request. So every single request has its own instance of the request scoped Struts action. The Struts dispatcher servlet filter does not store them as its own instance variable. Instead, it stores it as an attribute of the HttpServletRequest.
Servlets are normal java classes and thus are NOT Thread Safe.
But that said, Java classes are Thread safe if you do not have instance variables. Only instance variables need to synchronize. (Instance variable are variables declared in the class and not in within its methods.
Variables declared in the methods are thread safe as each thread creates it own Program Stack and function variables are allocated in the stack. This means that variable in a methods are created for each thread, hence does not have any thread sync issues associated.
Method variables are thread-safe, class variables are not.
There is a single instance of a servlet per servlet mapping; all instance properties are shared between all requests. Access to those properties must take that in to account.
Struts 2 actions (not "controller servlet", they're neither servlets nor controllers) are instantiated per-request. Action properties will be accessed only by a single request's thread.
Servlets are normally multi-threaded.
Servlet containers usually manage concurrent requests by creating a new Java thread for each request. The new thread is given an object reference to the requested servlet, which issues the response through the same thread. This is why it is important to design for concurrency when you write a servlet, because multiple requests may be handled by the same servlet instance.
The way that servlet containers handle servlet requests is implementation dependent; they may use a single servlet, they may use servlet pooling, it depends on the vendor's system architecture.
Struts 2 Action objects are instantiated for each request, so there are no thread-safety issues.
Servlet is not thread safe but we can make it as a thread safe by implementing that servlet class to SingleThreadModel
like the given below class definition but again the performance problem will be there so better option would be use synchronized portion
public class SurveyServlet extends HttpServlet
implements SingleThreadModel
{
servlet code here..
...
}
Servlet is not thread-safe by itself. You can make it thread-safe by making the service method synchronized.
you need to implement SingleThreadInterface to make it thread-safe.
Related
I think that for every request , container will create 1 servlet instance and will spawn multiple threads for every request. But is it possible to create particular servlet instance for every request instead of creating threads.
This is not possible if the servlet container's implementation conforms to the Java servlet specification. (All major application servers do.) You can use class (static) variables and methods to maintain state between invocations but I don't see any compulsion to do this (aside from academic purposes).
#WebListener
public class AllRequestsWebListener implements ServletRequestListener {
#Inject HttpRequestProducer producer;
public void requestInitialized(ServletRequestEvent sre) {
producer.requestInitialized(sre);
}
}
...
#RequestScoped
public class HttpRequestProducer {
...
}
I don't know howto inject request-bean as method-parameter and therefore I can guess that it will work properly when Request-bean injection is threadLocal. Can someone explain me how it's implemented in a thread-safe manner?
What you have injected in your bean is a proxy representing the real deal. The proxy will always forward the invocation to the correct bean
Intuition based answer
I believe it is thread safe, as request scope is thread safe (session and above are not, as a user can open multiple browser sessions and use the same session ID)
I tested it, although it's empiric evidence, but the injected HttpRequestProducer gets a new instance each request.
Note that the requestInitialized and requestDestroyed can be (and in practice are) different threads, so I will investigate further if you intend to use the same injected object on both methods.
Specs backed answer
The hard part was to find hard evidence for this claim in the specs.
I looked into the CDI spec and couldn't quickly find conclusive evidence that a #RequestScoped object is thread safe (e.g. using thread local) however I assume that a #RequestScoped bean is using the same scope as the scoped beans in Java EE 5: (see here)
In there this clause is interesting:
Controlling Concurrent Access to Shared Resources In a multithreaded
server, it is possible for shared resources to be accessed
concurrently. In addition to scope object attributes, shared resources
include in-memory data (such as instance or class variables) and
external objects such as files, database connections, and network
connections.
Concurrent access can arise in several situations:
Multiple web components accessing objects stored in the web context.
Multiple web components accessing objects stored in a session.
Multiple threads within a web component accessing instance variables.
A web container will typically create a thread to handle each request.
If you want to ensure that a servlet instance handles only one request
at a time, a servlet can implement the SingleThreadModel interface. If
a servlet implements this interface, you are guaranteed that no two
threads will execute concurrently in the servlet’s service method. A
web container can implement this guarantee by synchronizing access to
a single instance of the servlet, or by maintaining a pool of web
component instances and dispatching each new request to a free
instance. This interface does not prevent synchronization problems
that result from web components accessing shared resources such as
static class variables or external objects. In addition, the Servlet
2.4 specification deprecates the SingleThreadModel interface.
So in theory, it seems that the object itself is going to have one instance per request thread, however I couldn't find any hard evidence that this is supported.
I am new to server side coding and JSP/servlets. I have a code which has 3 classes. 1st is a Serv class inherited from java httpservlet. In this i have doPost() method implemented. In doPost() i use object of the 2nd class ResourceClass. ResourceClass is a singleton class. Hence essentially to use any method is do something like ResourceClass.getInstance().readResource();
Now readResource furthur uses Java Native access library to read a resource from disk. Now my question is Since as i understand if 1000 clients connect to my server(Apache Tomcat) for each new request i will have a new servlet serving the request. But all these servlets will essentially use the same singleton object. Hence will this reading be thread safe.
I do not change any internal state. So i think it wont effect my output hence the whole stuff is Idempotent. But will all these requests be queued making the singleton class object a bottleneck. Or will each servlet has its own copy.
Also if i change the Resource state then in that case will it be thread safe.
First of all, you won't have a new servlet for each request. The same, unique instance of servlet will be used to concurrently handle all the requests. The servlet is also a singleton: the web container instantiates only one instance.
You say that the requests to your ResourceClass singleton will be queued. They won't, unless you mark the method as synchronized or use some other locking mechanism. If you don't, then the threads will invoke your singleton method concurrently.
Whether it's thread-safe or not is impossible to say without seeing the code of your singleton and the code of the JNI library. The fact that it's read-only is a sign that it could be thread-safe, but it's not guaranteed.
In a Java EE server, you only have 1 instance of each servlet.
On the other hand, each http request is processed by the server in its own thread.
There is one instance of ResourceClass because it's a singleton so you will have a bottleneck if the readResource() method is synchronized.
Normally Servlets are initiated just once and web container simple spawns a new thread for every user request. Let's say if I create my own web container from scratch and instead of Threads, I simply create Servlets as Singleton. Will I be missing anything here? I guess, in this case, the singleton can only service one user request at a time and not multiple.
Normally Servlets are initiated just once and web container simple spawns a new thread for every user request.
The first statement is true, but the second actually not. Normally, threads are been created once during applications startup and kept in a thread pool. When a thread has finished its request-response processing job, it will be returned to the pool. That's also why using ThreadLocal in a servletcontainer must be taken with high care.
Let's say if I create my own web container from scratch and instead of Threads, I simply create Servlets as Singleton. Will I be missing anything here?
They does not necessarily need to follow the singleton pattern. Just create only one instance of them during application's startup and keep them in memory throughout application's lifetime and just let all threads access the same instance.
I guess, in this case, the singleton can only service one user request at a time and not multiple.
This is not true. This will only happen when you synchronize the access to the singleton's methods on an application-wide lock. For example by adding the synchronized modifier to the method of your servlet or a synchronized(this) in the manager's method who is delegating the requests to the servlets.
JavaEE used to have a mechanism for this - a marker interface called SingleThreadModel that your servlet could implement:
Ensures that servlets handle only one request at a time. This interface has no methods.
If a servlet implements this interface, you are guaranteed that no two threads will execute concurrently in the servlet's service method. The servlet container can make this guarantee by synchronizing access to a single instance of the servlet, or by maintaining a pool of servlet instances and dispatching each new request to a free servlet.
Note that SingleThreadModel does not solve all thread safety issues. For example, session attributes and static variables can still be accessed by multiple requests on multiple threads at the same time, even when SingleThreadModel servlets are used. It is recommended that a developer take other means to resolve those issues instead of implementing this interface, such as avoiding the usage of an instance variable or synchronizing the block of the code accessing those resources. This interface is deprecated in Servlet API version 2.4.
Containers could use this to instantiate a new servlet for each request, or maintain a pool of them, if they chose to.
This was deprecated in Servlet 2.4, for the reasons documented above. Those same reasons still apply to your question.
That's basically it.
I would question the motivations for creating your own container, with so many available for a wide range of purposes.
We all know that in the web tier there is the possibility that only a single instance of a given Servlet exists which services multiple requests. This can lead to threading issues in instance variables.
My question is, is it safe to inject an EJB using the #EJB annotation into a servlet as an instance variable?
My initial instinct would be no, under the assumption that the same instance of the EJB would service multiple requests at the same time. It would seem that this would also be the instinct of a number of other programmers: Don't inject to servlets
However have I jumped to the wrong conclusion. Clearly what is injected into the servlet is a proxy, under the hood does the container actually service each request with a different instance and maintain thread safety? As this forum would suggest: Do inject to servlets
There seems to be a lot of conflicting opinions. WHICH IS CORRECT???
It is safe to inject an EJB in a Servlet as a Servlet instance variable, as long as the EJB is Stateless. You MUST NEVER inject a Stateful Bean in a Servlet.
You must implement your EJB stateless in that it doesn't hold any instance variable which itself holds a stateful value (like Persistence Context). If you need to use the persistence context, then you must get an instance of it IN the methods of the EJB. You can do that by having a PersistenceContextFactory as a EJB instance Variable and then you get an instance of the entity manager from the Factory in the method of the EJB.
The PersistenceContextFactory is thread-safe, thus it can be injected in an instance variable.
As long as you comply to the above mentioned rules, it should be thread-safe to inject a Stateless Bean in a Servlet
Your reference "Don't inject to servlets" mentions nothing about ejbs or #ejb annotation. It talks about not thread safe objects such as PersistenceContext.
Per EJB spec you can access ejbs from variety of remote clients including servlets (EJB 3.0 Specification (JSR-220) - Section 3.1). Injecting ejb using #EJB annotation is a method of obtaining EJB interface via dependency injection (section 3.4.1) which is alternative to looking up ejb objects in the JNDI namespace. So there is nothing special about #EJB annotation with respect to EJBs obtained.
So, based on EJB 3.0 Spec, it's a standard practice to obtain ejbs from servlets using #EJB annotation.
It's a mixed bag.
Stateless session beans may be injected and are safe. This is because even if a single instance of a stub is used, access to the methods will be serialized by the container.
I think what inferreddesign says is not true. It doesn't matter if the stateless session bean uses a persistence context. Only one caller will ever access a single bean instance at the same time, so even though the persistence context is not thread safe, the EJB guards against multiple access to it. Think of it as if every session bean method has the synchronized keyword applied to it.
The main problem with injecting an EJB in a Servlet I think is performance. The single stub instance will become a major area of contention when multiple requests are queuing up while waiting for a session bean method to be executed for them.
I think the simple answer is that you aren't guaranteed that it is safe.
The reason for this is that there is nothing explicit in the EJB specification that says EJB home interfaces have to be thread safe. The spec outlines the behaviour of the server side part only. What you will probably find is that the client skeletons are actually thread safe but you would need to look at how they are implemented by the library you are using. The annotation part will just expand into a service locator so that doesn't buy you anything.