Java RMI registry object management over many machines

Question

Lets say I have 3 nodes in my system: node1, node2, node3 and I have remote objects living on all 3 nodes. My question is this:

Can I run one registry instance on node1 and have it manage all objects across the 3 nodes, or does each node needs its own registry instance? i.e. can one registry manage objects only on its own machine, or on other machines as well?

Answer 1

Each host that exports remote objects must have its own Registry. You can only execute Registry.bind() from a process running in the same host as the Registry. It's a security measure.

[There are ways around it, but ...]

Or you can use an LDAP server instead, and use JNDI for the binds and lookups instead of Naming or LocateRegistry.