demo site

Blaine Simpson <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.java.mx4j.devel
Message-ID <[email protected]>
I have a demo site for an application of mine (unrelated to Jmx or MX4J), and
it's been very successful at bringing new users in.  Instead of reading about
what a product can do, or following a list of instructions to run samples,
they just go to the site and run a working installation.

I wanted to do this for my http/html adaptor, and the same exact thing could
be used to exemplify the MX4J adaptors, as well as letting people actually
use the example MBeans in the Guide (well... those that work).  The MX4J
home page, the Guide, and possibly package/overview pages of API, could have
links to the demo site.

The problem is, security.  For a generally useful adaptor, it must have
object instantiation capabilities.  With my adaptor, a user can instantiate
any MBean as long as the adaptor can handle the input parameter types.  I'm
thinking that it wouldn't be very difficult for somebody to instantiate a
remote object loader (of any type) that happens to be an MBean.  They could
then load their own classes into the demo JVM.

Does anybody know a "simple" way to run either a standalone or
servlet-containerized adaptor which will somehow prohibit all remote
loading?  I think it's probably possible to set this up right using
class-loading restrictions in JVM security property files, but, not
having done anything like that before, I don't want to waste my time
trying to get this working without input by somebody more experienced
in this area.  (I'd bet lotsa money that this can be accomplished just
using the main Java API, but I want a "simple" solution).

...

What about other risks?  Even if remote loading is prohibited, if a user
found an MBean wrapper for FileInputStream, for example, they could read
files on the server (those which the process owner has access to).


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