RMI - How client can get server console output?

Question

I need that all server console output will appear in client output.

I'm invoking remote method on remote VM, during remote method execution i have some log4j report to the console (on remote).

I want to get/ return all log4j report to my client side console.

is this possible?

Answer 1

Not really. You have to understand that client and server only communicate through that RMI interface that you defined. Then both programs run in their own JVM; so stdout is something completely different for client and server. Same is of course true for any kind of logging infrastructure.

If you really want to push the server messages into your client logs; then you need to enhance that RMI interface, for example by allow the server to send back a List<String> that contains all the messages.

But please note: that is a rather bad design idea. You really do not want that your client logs contain server details. What happens on the server ... stays on the server. Your clients have no business knowing about such details. Because your users might find it very helpful when planning to attack your server ... to know what that thing is doing in detail!

Update: given your input, I would go for the following::

1. Make sure that you can really capture any char printed to stdout/stderr on your server; for example by "replacing" stdout/stderr so that anything printed there goes in some file (see here). Alternatively, if your VM is Linux, you can make sure both get piped into files.
2. Instead of trying to capture stuff within your RMI service, I would go for a simpler solution - by adding a RMI interface that allows you to pull those stdout/stderr files from your server. In other words: keep your current RMI calls as they are; but built another service that you can use to retrieve full log files at arbitrary points in time.