The classes and interfaces used in this specification come from the following packages:

javax.naming
javax.naming.spi
javax.naming.directory

These packages have no associated version. It is assumed they come from the runtime environment. This specification is based on Java SE 1.4 or later.

A client bundle wishing to make use of JNDI in order to access JNDI Providers such as LDAP or DNS in OSGi should not use the Naming Manager but instead use the JNDI Context Manager service. This service can be asked for a Context based on environment properties. The environment properties are based on an optional argument in the newInitialContext method, the Java System properties, and an optional resource in the caller's bundle.

These environment properties can specify an implementation class name for a factory that can create a Context object. If such a class name is specified, then it is searched for in the service registry. If such a service is found, then that service is used to create a new Context, which is subsequently returned. If no class name is specified, the service registry is searched for Initial Context Factory services. These services are tried in ranking order, as specified in ServiceReference.compareTo, to see if they can create an appropriate Context, the first one that can create a Context is then used.

If no class name is specified, all Initial Context Factory Builder services are tried to see if they can create a Context, the first non-null result is used. If no Context can be found, a No Initial Context Exception is thrown. Otherwise, the JNDI Context Manager service returns an initial Context that uses the just created Context from a provider as the backing service. This initial Context delegates all operations to this backing Context, except operations that use a name that can be interpreted as a URL, that is, the name contains a colon. URL operations are delegated a URL Context that is associated with the used scheme. URL Contexts are found through the general object conversion facility provided by the JNDI Provider Admin service.

The JNDI Provider Admin service provides a general object conversion facility that can be extended with Object Factory and Object Factory Builder services that are traditionally provided through the Naming Manager getObjectInstance method. A specific case for this conversion is the use of Reference objects. Reference objects can be used to store objects persistently in a Context implementation. Reference objects must be converted to their corresponding object when retrieved from a Context.

During the client's use of a Context it is possible that its provider's service is unregistered. In this case the JNDI Context Manager must release the backing Context. If the initial Context is used and no backing Context is available, the JNDI Context Manager must re-create a new Context, if possible. Otherwise a Naming Exception is thrown. If subsequently a proper new backing Context can be created, the initial Context must start operating again.

The JNDI Context Manager service must track the life cycle of a calling bundle and ensure that any returned Context objects are closed and returned objects are properly cleaned up when the bundle is closed or the JNDI Context Manager service is unget.

When the client bundle is stopped, any returned initial Context objects are closed and discarded. If the Initial Context Factory, or Initial Context Factory Builder, service that created the initial Context goes away then the JNDI Context Manager service releases the Context backing the initial Context and attempts to create a replacement Context.

Clients and JNDI Context providers that are unaware of OSGi use static methods to connect to the JRE JNDI implementation. The InitialContext class provides access to a Context from a provider and providers use the static NamingManager methods to do object conversion and find URL Contexts. This traditional model is not aware of OSGi and can therefore only be used reliably if the consequences of this lack of OSGi awareness are managed.

The [1] Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) defines an API for namespaces. These namespaces are abstracted with the Context interface. Namespaces that support attributes, such as a namespace as the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), are represented by the DirContext class, which extends the Context class. If applicable, a Context object can be cast to a DirContext object. The distinction is not relevant for this specification, except in places where it is especially mentioned.

The Context interface models a set of name-to-object bindings within a namespace. These bindings can be looked-up, created, and updated through the Context interface. The Context interface can be used for federated, flat, or hierarchical namespaces.

Obtaining a Context for a specific namespace, for example DNS, is handled through the InitialContext class. Creating an instance of this class will cause the JRE to find a backing Context. The Initial Context is only a facade for the backing Context. The facade context provides URL based lookups.

The backing Context is created by a JNDI Provider. How this backing Context is created is an elaborate process using class loading techniques or a provisioning mechanism involving builders, see Naming Manager Singletons for more information about the builder provisioning mechanism.

If there is no Initial Context Factory Builder set, the class name of a class implementing the InitialContextFactory interface is specified as a property in the environment. The environment is a Hashtable object that is constructed from different sources and then merged with System properties and a resource in the calling bundle, see Environment. In a standard Java SE JNDI, the given class name is then used to construct an InitialContextFactory object and this object is then used to create the backing Context. This process is depicted in Figure 126.2 on page .

Figure 126.2 Backing Context

The InitialContext class implements the Context interface. It can therefore delegate all the Context interface methods to the backing Context object. However, it provides a special URL lookup behavior for names that are formed like URLs, that is, names that contain a colon (':' \u003A) character. This behavior is called a URL lookup.

URL lookups are not delegated to the backing Context but are instead first tried via a URL Context based lookup on the given scheme, like:

myscheme:foo

For example a lookup using acme:foo/javax.sql.DataSource results in a URL Context being used, rather than the backing Context.

JNDI uses class loading techniques to search for an ObjectFactory class that can be used to create this URL Context. The Naming Manager provides a static method getURLContext for this purpose. If such a URL Context is found, it is used with the requested operation and uses the full URL. If no such URL Context can be found, the backing Context is asked to perform the operation with the given name.

The URL lookup behavior is only done when the backing Context was created by the JNDI implementation in the JRE. If the backing Context had been created through the singleton provisioning mechanism, then no URL lookup is done for names that have a colon. The URL lookup responsibility is then left to the backing Context implementation.

The NamingManager class provides a way to create objects from a description with the getObjectInstance method. In general, it will iterate over a number of ObjectFactory objects and ask each one of them to provide the requested object. The first non-null result indicates success. These ObjectFactory objects are created from an environment property.

A special case for the description argument in the getObjectInstance method is the Reference. A Reference is a description of an object that can be stored persistently. It can be re-created into an actual object through the static getObjectInstance method of the NamingManager class. The Reference object describes the actual ObjectFactory implementing class that must be used to create the object.

This default behavior is completely replaced with the Object Factory Builder singleton by getting the to be used ObjectFactory object directly from the set singleton Object Factory Builder.

JNDI clients need a way to set the configuration properties to select the proper JNDI Provider. For example, a JNDI Provider might require an identity and a password in order to access the service. This type of configuration is referred to as the environment of a Context. The environment is a set of properties. Common property names can be found in [3] JNDI Standard Property Names. The set of properties is build from the following sources (in priority order, that is later entries are shadowed by earlier entries):

There are some special rules around the handling of specific properties.

The default behavior of the JRE implementation of JNDI can be extended in a standardized way. The NamingManager class has two static singletons that allow JNDI Providers outside the JRE to provide InitialContextFactory and ObjectFactory objects. These singletons are set with the following static methods on the NamingManager class:

These JNDI Provider hooks are singletons and must be set before any application code creates an InitialContext object or any objects are converted. If these singletons are not set, the JNDI implementation in the JRE will provide a default behavior that is based on searching through classes defined in an environment property.

Both singletons can only be set once. A second attempt to set these singletons results in an Illegal State Exception being thrown.

The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) defines the following default providers:

Although these are the default JNDI Service Providers, the JNDI architecture provides a number of mechanisms to plug-in new types of providers.

The Java SE JNDI looks for a file in $JAVAHOME/lib/jndi.properties, see Environment. A JNDI Implementation must not use this information but it must use a resource in the bundle that uses the JNDI Context Manager service. The order is therefore:

The following four properties do not overwrite other properties but are merged:

These property values are considered lists and the ultimate value used by the JNDI Providers is taken by merging the values found in each stage into a single colon separated list. For more information see [3] JNDI Standard Property Names.

The environment consists of the merged properties. This environment is then passed to the Initial Context Factory Builder for the creation of an Initial Context Factory.

When a client calls one of the newInitialContext (or newInitialDirContext) methods, the JNDI Context Manager service must construct an object that implements the Context interface based on the environment properties. All factory methods in the InitialContextFactory and InitialContextFactoryBuilder classes take a Hashtable object with the environment as an argument, see Environment and Bundles.

The caller normally provides a specific property in the environment that specifies the class name of a provider class. This property is named:

java.naming.factory.initial

The algorithm to find the provider of the requested Context can differ depending on the presence or absence of the java.naming.factory.initial property in the environment.

In the following sections the cases for presence or absence of the java.naming.factory.initial property are described. Several steps in these algorithm iterate over a set of available services. This iteration must always take place in ranking order as specified in ServiceReference.compareTo.

Exception handling in the following steps is as follows:

A JNDI Provider can be added or removed to the service registry at any time because it is an OSGi service; OSGi services are by their nature dynamic. When a JNDI Provider unregisters an Initial Context Factory that was used to create a backing service then the JNDI Context Manager service must remove the association between any returned Contexts and their now invalid backing Contexts.

The JNDI Context Manager service must try to find a replacement whenever it is accessed and no backing Context is available. However, if no such replacement can be found the called function must result in throwing a No Initial Context Exception.

When a client has finished with a Context object, then the client must close this Context object by calling the close method. When a Context object is closed, the resources held by the JNDI Implementation on the client's behalf for that Context must all be released. Releasing these resources must not affect other, independent, Context objects returned to the same client.

If a client ungets the JNDI Context Manager service, all the Context objects returned through that service instance must automatically be closed by the JNDI Context Manager. When the JNDI Context Manager service is unregistered, the JNDI Context Manager must automatically close all Contexts held.

For more information about life cycle issues, see also Life Cycle Mismatch.

An Initial Context Factory Builder provider is asked to provide an Initial Context Factory when no implementation class is specified or no such implementation can be found. An Initial Context Factory Builder service can be used by containers for other bundles to control the initial Context their applications receive.

An Initial Context Factory Builder provider must register an Initial Context Factory Builder service. The iteration ordering of multiple Initial Context Factory Builder services must always take place in ranking order as specified in ServiceReference.compareTo. Implementations must be careful to correctly provide defaults.

For example, a container could use a thread local variable to mark the stack for a specific application. The implementation of the Initial Context Factory Builder can then detect specific calls from this application. To make the next code example work, an instance must be registered as an Initial Context Factory Builder service.

public class Container implements InitialContextFactoryBuilder {
    ThreadLocal<Application> apps;

    void startApp(final Application app) {
        Thread appThread = new Thread(app.getName()) {
            public void run() {
                apps.set(app);
                    app.run();
    }}}

    public InitialContextFactory 
        createInitialContextFactory( Hashtable<?,?> ht ) {
        final Application app = apps.get();
        if ( app == null )
          return null;

        return new InitialContextFactory() {
            public Context getInitialContext( Hashtable<?,?>env) {
                return app.getContext(env);
            }
        };
 } }

An Initial Context Factory provides Contexts of a specific type. For example, those contexts allow communications with an LDAP server. An Initial Context Factory Provider must register the its Initial Context Factory service under the following names:

An Initial Context Factory service can create both DirContext as well as Context objects.

For example, SUN JREs for Java SE provide an implementation of a Context that can answer DNS questions. The name of the implementation class is a well known constant. The following class can be used with Declarative Services to provide a lazy implementation of a DNS Context:

public class DNSProvider implements InitialContextFactory{
    public Context createInitialContextFactory( Hashtable<?,?>env ) throws 
        NamingException {
        try {
            Class<InitialContextFactory> cf = (Class<InitialContextFactory>)
                l.loadClass("com.sun.jndi.dns.DnsContextFactory" );
            InitialContextFactory icf = cf.newInstance();
            return icf.createInitialContextFactory(env);
        } catch( Throwable t ) {
            return null;
        }
    }
}

An Object Factory Builder provider must register an Object Factory Builder service. Such a service can be used to provide ObjectFactory and/or DirObjectFactory objects. An Object Factory Builder service is requested for such an object when no specific converter can be found. This service can be leveraged by bundles that act as a container for other bundles to control the object conversion for their subjects.

An Object Factory provider can participate in the conversion of objects. It must register a service under the following names:

A URL Context Factory is a special type of an Object Factory service. A URL Context Factory must be registered as an Object Factory service with the following service property:

A URL Context is used for URL based operations on an initial Context. For example, a lookup to acme:foo/javax.sql.DataSource must not use the provider based lookup mechanism of the backing Context but instead causes a lookup for the requested URL Context. A URL Context also provides a secondary mechanism for restoring Reference objects.

When an initial Context returned by the JNDI Context Manager service is given a URL based operation, it searches in the service registry for an Object Factory service that is published with the URL scheme property that matches the scheme used from the lookup request.

It then calls the getInstance method on the Object Factory service with the following parameters:

Calling the getInstance method must return a Context object. This context is then used to perform the lookup.

The life cycle of the Object Factory used to create the URL Context is tied to the JNDI context that was used to perform the URL based JNDI operation. By the time JNDI context is closed any ObjectFactory objects held to process the URL lookups must be released (unget).

The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) defines a number of default naming providers., see Built-In JNDI Providers. These naming providers are not OSGi aware, but are commonly used and are provided by the JRE. These naming providers rely on the NamingManager class for object conversion and finding URL Contexts.

The JRE default providers are made available by the JNDI Implementation. This JNDI Implementation must register a built-in Initial Context Factory Builder service that is capable of loading any InitialContextFactory classes of the JRE providers.

When this built-in Initial Context Factory Builder is called to create an InitialContextFactory object it must look in the environment properties that were given as an argument and extract the java.naming.factory.initial property; this property contains the name of the class of a provider. The built-in Initial Context Factory Builder then must use the bootstrap class loader to load the given InitialContextFactory class and creates a new instance with the no arguments constructor and return it. If this fails, it must return null. This mechanism will allow loading of any built-in providers.

This built-in Initial Context Factory Builder service must be registered with no service.ranking property. This will give it the default ranking and allows other providers to override the default.

The OSGi URL Context handles the complexities by hiding the dynamic nature of OSGi. The OSGi URL Context must handle the dynamics by proxying the service objects. This proxy must implement the interface given in the URL. If the JNDI service name instead of a class name is used, then all interfaces under which the service is registered must be implemented. If an interface is not compatible with the owning bundle's class space then it must not be implemented on the proxy, it must then be ignored. If this results in no implemented interfaces then an Illegal Argument Exception must be thrown.

Interfaces can always be proxied but classes are much harder. For this reason, an implementation is free to throw an Illegal Argument Exception when a class is used in the URL or in one of the registration names.

Getting the actual service object can be delayed until the proxy is actually used to call a method. If a method is called and the actual service has been unregistered, then the OSGi URL Context must attempt to rebind it to another service that matches the criteria given in the URL the next time it is called. When no alternative service is available, a Service Exception with the UNREGISTERED type code must be thrown. Services obtained with the osgi: URL scheme must therefore be stateless because the rebinding to alternative services is not visible to the caller; there are no listeners defined for this rebinding, see Services and State.

If the reference was looked up using osgi:servicelist then proxies must still be used, however, these proxies must not rebind when their underlying service is unregistered. Instead, they must throw a Service Exception with the UNREGISTERED type whenever the proxy is used and the proxied service is no longer available.

A service obtained through a URL Context lookup is proxied. During the usage of this service, the JNDI Implementation can be forced to transparently rebind this service to another instance. The JNDI specification is largely intended for portability. For this reason, it has no mechanism architected to receive notifications about this rebinding. The client code is therefore unable to handle the dynamics.

The consequence of this model is that stateful services require extra care because applications cannot rely on the fact that they always communicate with the same service. Virtually all OSGi specified services have state.

The client typically requests a Context using the following code:

Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY, "com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory");
InitialContext ctx = new InitialContext(env);

The created InitialContext object is a facade for the real Context that is requested by the caller. It provides the bootstrapping mechanism for JNDI Provider plugability. In order to obtain the provider's Context, the InitialContext class makes a call to the static getContext method on the NamingManager class. The JNDI code in the JRE then delegates any request for an initial Context object to the JNDI Implementation through the registered InitialContextFactoryBuilder singleton. The JNDI Implementation then determines the Bundle Context of the caller as described in Caller's Bundle Context. If no such Bundle Context can be found, a No Initial Context Exception is thrown to the caller. This Bundle Context must be from an ACTIVE bundle.

This Bundle Context is then used to get the JNDI Context Manager service. This service is then used as described in Context Creation to get an initial Context. This initial Context is then used in the InitialContext object as the default initial context. In this specification this is normally called the backing context. An InitialContext object constructed through an Initial Context Factory Builder will not use the URL lookup mechanism, it must delegate all operations to the its backing context. A Context obtained through the JNDI Context Manager provides the URL lookup behavior instead.

JNDI provides a general object conversion facility that is used by the URL Context and the process of restoring an object from a Reference object, see Object and Reference Conversion. A JNDI Implementation must take over this conversion by setting the static Object Factory Builder singleton, see Naming Manager Singletons. Non-OSGi aware Context implementations will use the NamingManager static getObjectInstance method for object conversion. This method then delegates to the set singleton Object Factory Builder to obtain an ObjectFactory object that understands how to convert the given description to an object. The JNDI Implementation must return an Object Factory that understands the OSGi service registry. If the getObjectInstance method is called on this object it must use the same rules as defined for the JNDI Provider Admin service getObjectInstance(Object,javax.naming.Name,javax.naming.Context,Map) method, see JNDI Provider Admin service. The Bundle Context that must be used with respect to this service is the caller's Bundle Context, see Caller's Bundle Context. If the Bundle Context is not found, the description object must be returned. The calling bundle must not be required to import the org.osgi.service.jndi package.

The following mechanisms are used to determine the callers Bundle Context:

The use of static access to the JNDI mechanisms, NamingManager and InitialContext class methods, in the traditional client programming model produces several problems with regard to the OSGi life cycle. The primary problem being that there is no dependency management in place when static methods are used. These problems do not exist for the JNDI Context Manager service. Therefore, OSGi applications are strongly encouraged to use the JNDI Context Manager service.

The traditional programming model approach relies on two JVM singletons in the Naming Manager, see Naming Manager Singletons. The JNDI Implementation bundle must set both singletons before it registers its JNDI Context Manager service and JNDI Provider Admin service. However, in OSGi there is no defined start ordering, primarily because bundles can be updated at any moment in time and will at such time not be available to provide their function anyway. For this reason, OSGi bundles express their dependencies with services.

The lack of start ordering means that a bundle could create an InitialContext object before the JNDI Implementation has had the chance to set the static Initial Context Factory Builder singleton. This means that the JNDI implementation inside the JRE will provide its default behavior and likely have to throw an exception. A similar exception is thrown for the Object Factory Builder singleton.

There is a also a (small) possibility that a client will call new InitialContext() after the singletons have been set, but before the JNDI Context Manager and JNDI Provider Admin services have been registered. This specification requires that these services are set after the singletons are set. In this race condition the JNDI Implementation should throw a No Initial Context Exception, explaining that the JNDI services are not available yet.

A JNDI Implementation may wish to assert that the user of the provider has some relevant Java 2 security permission. Since the JNDI implementation is an intermediary between the JNDI client and provider this means that the JNDI implementation needs to have any permissions required to access any JNDI Provider. As a result the JNDI implementation needs All Permission. This will result in the JNDI clients permissions being checked to see if it has the relevant permission to access the JNDI Provider.

The JNDI Implementation must make any invocation to access these services in a doPriviledged check. A JNDI client must therefore not be required to have the following permissions, which are needed by a JNDI Implementation:

ServicePermission ..ObjectFactory                REGISTER,GET
ServicePermission ..DirObjectFactory             REGISTER,GET
ServicePermission ..ObjectFactoryBuilder         REGISTER,GET
ServicePermission ..InitialContextFactory        REGISTER,GET
ServicePermission ..InitialContextFactoryBuilder REGISTER,GET
ServicePermission ..JNDIProviderAdmin            REGISTER,GET

The JNDI Implementation bundle must have the appropriate permissions to install the InitialContextFactoryBuilder and ObjectFactoryBuilder instances using the appropriate methods on the NamingManager class. This requires the following permission:

RuntimePermission "setFactory"

A JNDI client using the JNDI Context Manager service must have the following permissions:

ServicePermission ..JNDIContextManager           GET

Obtaining a reference to a JNDI Context Manager service should be considered a privileged operation and should be guarded by permissions.

A JNDI client must not be able to obtain services or a Bundle Context that the client bundle would not be able to get via the core OSGi API. To allow a client to use the osgi namespace to get a service the bundle must have the corresponding Service Permission. When using the osgi namespace to obtain the Bundle Context the client bundle must have Admin Permission for the Bundle Context. These permissions must be enforced by the osgi URL namespace handler. If there is no proper permission, the implementation must throw a Name Not Found Exception to prevent exposing the existence of such services.