In .NET remoting what is the difference between RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType and RemotingServices.Marshal?
In .NET remoting what is the difference between RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType and RemotingServices.Marshal?
What I want to do is create an object in a Windows Service, then put it in as a remoting object and have the Windows Service and the Client both act on the remoting object.
I thought the below code would accomplish this.
FooRemoting foo = new FooRemoting();
RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType(typeof(FooRemoting), serverName, WellKnownObjectMode.Singleton);
RemotingServices.Marshal(foo);
Answer
This is what I found.
RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType(typeof(FooRemoting),
serverName, WellKnownObjectMode.Singleton);
RegisterWellKnownServiceType will create the object and make it a Singleton to any client that consumes it, but a reference by the server is not created. The object is not created until a client ask for it, and the same object is used for any other clients.
RemotingServices.Marshal(foo);
Marshal will register an object that has been created by the server, in this case a windows service. Then server will then have reference to the object and the clients will consume the same object.
My issue was using the Marshal to register the remoting object. Over time the remoting object will disappear for clients to consume, i.e. no longer on the remoting object. The service would still keep its reference. Then I tried the RegisterWellKnownServiceType and the clients keep getting the correct reference, however I could not get the service to have a reference to the same object.
The solution is overriding the remoting object in this case FooRemoting. If I overrode the InitializeLifetimeService and returned null, the client would never lose connection, and the service will, keep the connection.
public override object InitializeLifetimeService()
{
//return base.InitializeLifetimeService();
return null;
}
In order to keep the object created by the service and have the client to use the same object you must use
RemotingServices.Marshal(foo);
and override InitializeLifetimeService to return null.