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As mentioned the initialServers is only used for bootstrapping the multipoint network. Once running, all servers will dynamically establish direct connections with each other and there is no single point of failure.

However to ensure that the bootstrapping process can occur successfully, the initialServers property of the conf/multipoint.properties file must be set carefully and with a specific server start order in mind. Each server consults its initialServers list exactly once in the bootstrapping phase at startup, after that time connections are made dynamically.

This means that at least one of the servers listed in initialServers must already be running when the server starts or the server might never become introduced and connected to all the other servers in the network.

Failed scenario background

As an example of a failed scenario, imagine there are three servers; server1, server2, server3. They are setup only to point to the server in front of them making a chain:

Which is essentially server1 -> server2 -> server3. This scenario could work, but they servers would have to be started in exactly the opposite order:

  1. server3 starts
  2. server2 starts
    1. static: connect to server3
  3. server1 starts
    1. static: connect to server2
    2. dynamic: connect to server3

At this point all servers would be fully connected. But the above setup is flawed and could easily fail. The first flaw is server3 lists nothing in its initialServers list, so if it were restarted it would leave the multipoint network and not know how to get back in.

The second flaw is if you started them in any other order, you would also not get a fully connected multipoint network. Say the servers were started in "front" order:

  1. server1 starts
    1. static: connect to server2 - failed, server2 not started.
  2. server2 starts
    1. static: connect to server3 - failed, server3 not started.
  3. server3 starts
    1. no connection attempts, initialServers list is empty.

After startup completes, all servers will be completely isolated and failover will not work. The described setup is weaker than it needs to be. Listing just one server means the listed server is a potential point of weakness. As a matter of trivia, it is interesting to point out that you could bring a fourth server online temporarily that lists all three servers. Once it makes the introductions and all servers learn of each other, you could shut it down again.

The above setup is easily fixable via better configuration. If server3 listed both server1 and server2 in its initialServers list, rather than listing nothing at all, then all servers would fully discover each other regardless of startup order; assuming all three servers did eventually start.

Bootstrapping Three Servers or Less

In a three sever scenario, we recommend simply having all three servers list all three servers.

There's no harm to a server listing itself. It gives you one clean list to maintain and it will work even if you decide not to start one of the three servers.

Bootstrapping Four Servers or More

In a scenario of four or more, we recommend picking at least to servers and focus on always keeping at least one of them running. Lets refer to them as "root" servers for simplicity sake.

Root server1 would list root server2 so they would always be linked to each other regardless of start order or if one of them went down. Server1 could be shutdown and reconnect on startup to the full multipoint network through server2, and vice versa.

All other servers would simply list the root servers (server1, server2) in their initialServers list.

As long as at least one root server (server1 or server2) was running, you can bring other servers on and offline at will and always have a fully connected graph.

Of course all servers once running and connected will have a full list of all other servers in the network, so if at any time the "root" servers weren't around to make initial introductions to new servers it would be no trouble. It's possible to reconfigure new servers to point at any other server in the network as all servers will have the full list. So these "root" servers are no real point of failure in function, but only of convenience.

Setting initialServers overrides

Always remember that any property in a conf/<server-service>.properties file can be overridden on the command line or via system properties. So it is possible easily set the initialServers list in startup scripts.

A bash example might look something like:

!/bin/bash

OPENEJB_HOME=/opt/openejb-3.1.3
INITIAL_LIST=$(cat /some/shared/directory/our_initial_servers.txt)

$OPENEJB_HOME/bin/openejb start -Dmultipoint.initialServers=$INITIAL_LIST