HOW TO SET UP A JXTA RENDEZVOUS PEER

1.Introduction

2.Hardware & Software Requirements

3.Configuration

4.Ongoing Rendezvous Maintenance & Tips


1.Introduction

A JXTA rendezvous peer is a JXTA peer that agrees to share some of its networking, cpu and diskstorage with the rest of the JXTA community to facilitate the discovery of resource advertisements (peer, peergroup, pipe and service) by other peers. Rendezvous peers help peers find far away located resources.

JXTA rendezvous peers are essential for the bootstrapping of a new peer as they allow a peer to discover enough network resources for that peer to sustain itself.

The JXTA platforn configurator tool is used to configure a peer as a rendezvous peer.

2.Hardware & Software Requirements

In order to run a peer as a rendezvous peer, the following is necessary:

a computer running JXTA with some disk space available. Since rendezvous are used to cache JXTA advertisements, the disk space necessary depends on how much is cached. Users may limit the disk space by flushing the 'cm' directory.

A rendezvous must be reachable from the peers it is a rendezvous for. In pratice, rendezvous needs a static IP address, and two port numbers that can be reached from the Internet (firewalls must be configured to let those ports in).

CPU: while JXTA can run on slow computers, it is preferable if rendezvous run on reasonibly fast computers. A PC at 700Mhz can easily be a rendezvous for up to 100 peers.

A good JVM: rendezvous can run on any JVM which is at least 1.1.4 compliant. However, better performance will be reached on good JVM (a JIT compiler is preferable).

Rendezvous have been tested under Solaris 8, Linux (RedHat 7.0), Windows 98 ME and Windows 2000.

3.Configuration

Step 1: Get the latest stable JXTA runtime (check platform.jxta.org/java for the latest release).

Step 2: Install it into a new directory/folder

Step 3: run it, you will have the configurator tool on your screen

Step 4: configure the following:

"Advanced" Menu:

make sure that "act as a Rendezvous" is checked in

The right table shows the list of rendezvous you are connected through HTTP, and the left table shows the list of rendezvous you are connected through TCP. Even if your peer is itself a rendezvous, it needs to know about a few rendezvous, so it can be "connected" to the rest of the JXTA Network. The number of rendezvous you would like to be connected to is up to you. 3 seems to be a reasonable number. Pickup from platform.jxta.org/java/rendezvous.html the rendezvous available.you would like to use, and set them into that section. Since it is preferable for rendezvous to be connected to other rendezvous through TCP rather than HTTP, unselect all the HTTP rendezvous, by clicking on them, and click on the minus button until the list is empty.

Remove all the TCP rendezvous that you do not want to be connected to, and add any rendezvous you would like to be connected to, by entering their name and port number, and then clicking on the plus button.

make sure that "act as a Router" is checked in

There is a current limitation a rendezvous MUST also be a router.

Specify your public address. For instance, jxta.clip2.com, your static IP. Note, if your rendezvous is on a NAT network, this box MUST not contain your NAT address,but instead your static IP or DNS name. This information is what will be stored in your peer advertisement, and be used by other peers in order to reach you.

Step 6:

you rendezvous peer is running. You now need to let the community know about your new rendezvous so other people can use it. This done by sending an email to discuss@jxta.org with the following information, the two addresses this rendezvous can be reached, HTTP and TCP. For instance: http://jxta.clip2.com:6002, and tcp://jxta.clip2.com:6001, and an email address for the Rendezvous manager (s) that can be contacted. so we can update the information available on platform.jxta.org/jxta/rendezvous.html.

4. Ongoing Rendezvous Maintenance & Tips:

Make sure that your rendezvous is really working. This can be done by setting up a JXTA non-rendezvous peer, connected to your rendezvous: if that peer cannot connect to your rendezvous, that means it is not working properly. If it does not work, exit your rendezvous and restart it. Note that restarting a rendezvous peer can take some time, since rendezvous peers clean up its cache first. That process can take a few minutes.

Due to memory leaks in the current code you may have to restart your rendezvous once in a while. We are agressivelly trying to fix these memory leaks.

Every time you are restarting the rendezvous you may want to clean the entire 'cm' directory. Cleanup the cache.

You can monitor the usage of your rendezvous by typing in the shell the "rdvstatus" command. In the "This peer is connected to the following clients" you will see the list of the peers that are connected to you.

You can get some remote management tools for rendezvous from rrs.jxta.org project