[Solved] Bootstrapping on Ubuntu server

[Hagar Delest]

I operate a cloud server with Ubuntu 16.04 and OpenOffice 4.1.2. Several users use java application that bootstrap an instance of OpenOffice. For bootstrapping I use bootstrapconnector.jar. The first user can easily bootstrap OpenOffice with the following java-snippet:

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List liste = ooo.connector.server.OOoServer.getDefaultOOoOptions();
            liste.clear();
            //liste.add("-nologo");
            liste.add("--nodefault");
            liste.add("--norestore");
            oooExeFolder = "/opt/openoffice4/program";
            ooo.connector.server.OOoServer server = new ooo.connector.server.OOoServer(oooExeFolder, liste);
            [color=#800000]server.start("-accept=\"socket,host=localhost,port=8699;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager\"");[/color]
            System.out.println(server.toString());
            BootstrapSocketConnector oooConnector = new BootstrapSocketConnector(server);
            xContext = oooConnector.connect();
            xMultiComponentFactory = xContext.getServiceManager();
            xcomponentloader = (XComponentLoader) UnoRuntime.queryInterface(XComponentLoader.class,xMultiComponentFactory.createInstanceWithContext("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop", xContext));
            PropertyValue[] argumente  = new PropertyValue[1];
            argumente[0] = new PropertyValue();
            argumente[0].Name="MacroExecutionMode";
            argumente[0].Value=com.sun.star.document.MacroExecMode.ALWAYS_EXECUTE_NO_WARN;
            objectDocumentToStore = (XComponent) xcomponentloader.loadComponentFromURL(loadUrl, "_default", 2, argumente);

OpenOffice starts and everything works just fine. But now a second user starts a different java application with nearly the same bootstrap-mechanism. Only loadUrl and the red line above are different. It reads now

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server.start("-accept=\"socket,host=localhost,port=8700;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager\"");

The app of the second user crashes on the last line of the code snippet. In some cases with an error message, in other cases the OOo Document appears on the display of the first user!! But on the other hand, if user 1 types

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/opt/openoffice4/program/soffice -accept="socket,host=localhost,port=8699;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager"

on the terminal. OOo opens fine
Now user 2 types

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/opt/openoffice4/program/soffice -accept="socket,host=localhost,port=8700;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager"

on the terminal. OOo opens fine too.
sudo netstat -a gives me the information that ports 8699 and 8700 are in listening mode.

Some advice would be highly appreciated

Best regards and thanks in advance
Andeas from wmpartner

[wmpartner]

I've found a solution that works very stable. I'm now using the jodconverter library to connect to a running instance of OpenOffice. It has a slightly different bootstrap mechanism. First of all it only connects to a running OO instance. It return an error if the office instance isn't listening on the desired port.
Before you connect you have to start OO from the command line or a script

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/opt/openoffice4/program/soffice -accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8699;urp;" &

Establishing the connection in Java is very simple:

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// connect to an OpenOffice.org instance running on port 8699
connection = new SocketOpenOfficeConnection(8699);
connection.connect();
xContext = connection.getComponentContext();

That's nearly all. To be on the save side some more scripting and Java-programming is necessary. Before you start a new instance of OO on a certain port you better make sure that no other user has already started a connection on that port. My solution isn't elegant but it works stable. I use the following shell script:

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#!/bin/sh
returnvalue=1
java -jar /pathTo/MyProgram.jar
returnvalue=$?

if [ $returnvalue -eq 12 ]; then
    /opt/openoffice4/program/soffice -accept="socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8699;urp;" &
    while ! echo exit | nc 127.0.0.1 8699; do sleep 2; done
    java -jar /pathTo/MyProgram.jar
fi


The Java program returns 12 if no other user has started OO on port 8699. This can be done with System.exec() and the command ss -tanp | grep 8699. If a process is listening on port 8699 the output should contain "127.0.0.1:8699" and "users:((\"soffice.bin\",pid=" and "LISTEN". If this is the case you can read the pid from the output and query the owner oft this process. I did it with

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String user = System.getProperty("user.name");
Process p = r.exec("ps -p " + pid + " -o pid,vsz=MEMORY -o user,group=GROUP -o comm,args=ARGS");
output = org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils.toString(p.getInputStream());

If output contains user then the process is running and the user owns it. Now you can connect to this OO instance.

Without asking the ownership of the process you have more or less funny side effects.

I hope it helps others. If there is anybody with a better and/or more elegant solution, please reply to this post.

Best regards
Andreas from wmpartner