Developing server providers

The com.yahoo.jdisc.service.ServerProvider interface defines a component that is capable of acting as a server for an external client. This document explains how to implement and deploy a custom server provider.

All requests that are processed in a JDisc application are created by server providers. These are the parts of the JDisc Container that accept incoming connections. Upon accepting a request from an external client, the server provider must create and dispatch a corresponding com.yahoo.jdisc.Request instance. Upon receiving the com.yahoo.jdisc.Response, the server needs to respond back to the client. To implement a server provider, either implement the ServerProvider interface directly, or subclass the more convenient AbstractServerProvider. Please note the following:

• All server providers require a local reference to CurrentContainer. Declare that as a constructor argument (which triggers injection), and store it locally.
• All requests dispatched by a server provider should be "server" requests (i.e. requests whose isServerRequest() method returns true). To create such a request, use this constructor.
• The code necessary to dispatch a request and write its content into the returned ContentChannel is the same as for dispatching a client request from a request handler.
• The code necessary to handle the response and its content is the same as for handling a client response in a request handler.

To install a server provider in a container, use the server element in services.xml, e.g.:

<container id="default" version="1.0">
    <server id="my.package.MyServerProvider" bundle="the name in <artifactId> in pom.xml" />
    <nodes>
        <node hostalias="node1" />
    </nodes>
</container>