Working with singletons in .Net Remoting

Question

I'm having a bit of a problem with a singleton class I'm exposing via remoting. In my server I have:

TcpChannel channel = new TcpChannel( Settings.Default.RemotingPort );
ChannelServices.RegisterChannel( channel, false );
RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType( 
    typeof( RemotableObject ), "RemotableObject", 
    WellKnownObjectMode.Singleton );

RemotableObject is a singleton object that inherits MarshalByRefObject.

My client connects to it via:

remoteObject = (RemotableObject)Activator.GetObject(
    typeof( RemotableObject ),
    string.Format( "tcp://{0}:{1}/RemotableObject", serverIP, serverPort ) );

Everything works great as far as the remoting goes, but when I access the singleton object in my server code like this:

int someValue = RemotableObject.Instance.SomeDynamicValue;

It accesses a different instance than the clients do. I have also verified that the private constructor in RemotableObject gets hit twice while debugging.

I can get the desired behavior if I get an instance to RemotableObject via remoting in my server code, but is there a way that I can access the same object as my clients from the server without the remoting overhead?

Answer 1

No.

There is no way to read the memory of the client in the server.

Answer 2

If I understand what you're after, (you want the object to live on the server, but you want all client calls to get the same instance of the object on the server, and you also want calls in the server code to get that same instance? )

then, in your server, Use

RemotingServices.Marshal([singletonInstance], MesgURI);

Instead of RegisterWellKnownServiceType()

also, in the class representing the singleton, remember to override the InitializeLifetimeService property... or the singleton object will get Garbage collected at some point...

public override object InitializeLifetimeService() { return (null); }

From the server, just call your singleton classes' static factory method to get access to that singleton instance... Do not use remoting calls at all...

Answer 3

I've never tried to call Activator.GetObject from the server-side, but that should return the same instance that the clients are using. But, you're still going to get a proxy.

Answer 4

Very good! It worked fine to me! Thanks!