[gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Alan McKinnon]

Hi all,

The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process is: 
log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page starts a java 
APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not a mere applet.

I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the java-x86-
emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've tried sun-jdk, 
sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.

The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app doesn't do 
much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing. This strikes me 
as odd:

A java app is bytecode that is independent of platform. It should make no 
difference whether a 32bit or 64bit jvm executes the bytecode as the format of 
the Java Virtual Machine and it's bytecode is constant.

Surely?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Alan McKinnon<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process is:
> log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page starts a java
> APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not a mere applet.
>
> I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the java-x86-
> emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've tried sun-jdk,
> sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
>
> The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app doesn't do
> much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing. This strikes me
> as odd:
>
> A java app is bytecode that is independent of platform. It should make no
> difference whether a 32bit or 64bit jvm executes the bytecode as the format of
> the Java Virtual Machine and it's bytecode is constant.
>
> Surely?
>

Alan,
   I can only echo your frustrations. I don't have a 64-bit Windows
installation to test but I've run into numerous web sites that make
use of Java and never found an installation for my 64-bit Gentoo that
works as well as my wife's 32-bit Gentoo. Maybe things work perfectly
fine on both machines but numerous ones fail on mine and when tested
on my wife's seem to work fine. Things like buttons, selection check
marks, stock charts and other things that specific sites were doing in
Java tended to be where I had trouble.

   Along these lines was part of the reason I posed a question some
weeks ago on the Gentoo-64-bit list about the possibility of using a
64-bit kernel but building all apps as 32-bit. (Not my idea - picked
it up on LKML.)

   Good luck and keep us posted. I hope you make progress.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 29 June 2009 18:54:13 Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Alan McKinnon<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process
> > is: log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page
> > starts a java APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not
> > a mere applet.
> >
> > I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the
> > java-x86- emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've
> > tried sun-jdk, sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
> >
> > The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app
> > doesn't do much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing.
> > This strikes me as odd:
> >
> > A java app is bytecode that is independent of platform. It should make no
> > difference whether a 32bit or 64bit jvm executes the bytecode as the
> > format of the Java Virtual Machine and it's bytecode is constant.
> >
> > Surely?
>
> Alan,
>    I can only echo your frustrations. I don't have a 64-bit Windows
> installation to test but I've run into numerous web sites that make
> use of Java and never found an installation for my 64-bit Gentoo that
> works as well as my wife's 32-bit Gentoo. Maybe things work perfectly
> fine on both machines but numerous ones fail on mine and when tested
> on my wife's seem to work fine. Things like buttons, selection check
> marks, stock charts and other things that specific sites were doing in
> Java tended to be where I had trouble.
>
>    Along these lines was part of the reason I posed a question some
> weeks ago on the Gentoo-64-bit list about the possibility of using a
> 64-bit kernel but building all apps as 32-bit. (Not my idea - picked
> it up on LKML.)
>
>    Good luck and keep us posted. I hope you make progress.

I'm thinking it must be something in Juniper's ncsvc app - judging by the 
quality of their install and launch scripts, I'd rate their programmer's skill 
on par with chimpanzee's for the most part. I'd understand a traditional 
applet - it runs in the browser's process space and all sorts of things could 
conflict. But this is just a regular app (I can kill Firefox as soon as the 
VPN is up and ncsvn continues as normal).

I'm now going to search for options to make this thing log more and better. 
Let's see what happens.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Monday 29 June 2009 18:10:44 Alan McKinnon wrote:

> judging by the quality of their install and launch scripts, I'd rate their
> programmer's skill on par with chimpanzee's for the most part.

About the same as mine then :-(

No programming since 1991, and that was Fortran. Mind you, 10 years earlier 
I was a bit of a whiz at assembler on an Argus 500.

[/OT]

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Montag 29 Juni 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process
> is: log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page starts
> a java APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not a mere
> applet.
>
> I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the
> java-x86- emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've
> tried sun-jdk, sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
>
> The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app doesn't
> do much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing. This
> strikes me as odd:
>
> A java app is bytecode that is independent of platform. It should make no
> difference whether a 32bit or 64bit jvm executes the bytecode as the format
> of the Java Virtual Machine and it's bytecode is constant.
>
> Surely?

yes, the bytecode is agnostic. But the vm is not - and look into the 
directory, tons and tons of old crap. If juniper is badly programmed, it might 
trigger some bug in the old stuff.

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Florian Philipp]

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Alan McKinnon schrieb:
> Hi all,
> 
> The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process is: 
> log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page starts a java 
> APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not a mere applet.
> 
> I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the java-x86-
> emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've tried sun-jdk, 
> sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
> 
> The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app doesn't do 
> much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing. This strikes me 
> as odd:
> 

If it isn't an applet, maybe you can extract the jar's URL from the web
page, download it with wget and try to run it locally.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 29 June 2009 19:48:28 Florian Philipp wrote:
> Alan McKinnon schrieb:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process
> > is: log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page
> > starts a java APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not
> > a mere applet.
> >
> > I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the
> > java-x86- emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've
> > tried sun-jdk, sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
> >
> > The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app
> > doesn't do much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing.
> > This strikes me as odd:
>
> If it isn't an applet, maybe you can extract the jar's URL from the web
> page, download it with wget and try to run it locally.

There's a local copy on the machine anyway, which I've tried to run stand-
alone. The VPN uses two-factor auth - the Windows domain username/pass plus an 
OTP from a credit-card fob. It appears that the web page sets this up right 
somehow, and it's https:// so I can't sniff it and see what gives.

I'll keep trying though

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Monday 29 June 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> an OTP from a credit-card fob. It appears that the web page sets this up
> right somehow, and it's https:// so I can't sniff it and see what gives.

Yes you can with some tool like webmitm, dsniff or ettercap (or others).

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Alan McKinnon<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process is:
> log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page starts a java
> APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not a mere applet.
>
> I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the java-x86-
> emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've tried sun-jdk,
> sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
>
> The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app doesn't do
> much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing. This strikes me
> as odd:
>
> A java app is bytecode that is independent of platform. It should make no
> difference whether a 32bit or 64bit jvm executes the bytecode as the format of
> the Java Virtual Machine and it's bytecode is constant.
>
> Surely?

According to my Google search results, a 64-bit Sun Java plug-in has
been provided starting with Java SE 6 Update 12 Build 02. You should
be able to select your preferred plug-in and virtual machine using
eselect (I don't think I have tried it... I can't remember the last
time I encountered a Java applet on the web)

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 29 June 2009 20:31:07 Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Alan McKinnon<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process
> > is: log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page
> > starts a java APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not
> > a mere applet.
> >
> > I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the
> > java-x86- emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've
> > tried sun-jdk, sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
> >
> > The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app
> > doesn't do much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing.
> > This strikes me as odd:
> >
> > A java app is bytecode that is independent of platform. It should make no
> > difference whether a 32bit or 64bit jvm executes the bytecode as the
> > format of the Java Virtual Machine and it's bytecode is constant.
> >
> > Surely?
>
> According to my Google search results, a 64-bit Sun Java plug-in has
> been provided starting with Java SE 6 Update 12 Build 02. You should
> be able to select your preferred plug-in and virtual machine using
> eselect (I don't think I have tried it... I can't remember the last
> time I encountered a Java applet on the web)

I said in my original post that I had tried a 64 bit jre without success. It's 
also NOT an applet - it continues to run as it's own full-blown process even 
after the browser exits.

And the correct commands to configure system and user vm's were executed each 
time.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Java apps in 64 bit JVM?

[Paul Hartman]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Alan McKinnon<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday 29 June 2009 20:31:07 Paul Hartman wrote:
>> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Alan McKinnon<alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > The company has a Juniper Secure Connect VPN and I run amd64. The process
>> > is: log in via a web page in a browser, click a button and the page
>> > starts a java APP to create the ssl tunnel - a full blown Swing app, not
>> > a mere applet.
>> >
>> > I've only ever got this Java app to run in 32 bit Firefox with the
>> > java-x86- emul package. 64 bit Firefox, Konqueror, Opera all fail. I've
>> > tried sun-jdk, sun-jre (nsplugin and nsplugin-2), blackdown and icedtea.
>> >
>> > The only thing that works is firefox-bin with a 32bit jvm. The app
>> > doesn't do much in the way of logging so I don't know why it's failing.
>> > This strikes me as odd:
>> >
>> > A java app is bytecode that is independent of platform. It should make no
>> > difference whether a 32bit or 64bit jvm executes the bytecode as the
>> > format of the Java Virtual Machine and it's bytecode is constant.
>> >
>> > Surely?
>>
>> According to my Google search results, a 64-bit Sun Java plug-in has
>> been provided starting with Java SE 6 Update 12 Build 02. You should
>> be able to select your preferred plug-in and virtual machine using
>> eselect (I don't think I have tried it... I can't remember the last
>> time I encountered a Java applet on the web)
>
> I said in my original post that I had tried a 64 bit jre without success. It's
> also NOT an applet - it continues to run as it's own full-blown process even
> after the browser exits.
>
> And the correct commands to configure system and user vm's were executed each
> time.

Okay, I misunderstood. It looks like it may be a Juniper-related
problem and not a Java problem. I have used Java Web Start apps using
64-bit java on my system and it works fine, but googling juniper vpn
shows several people on various distros having problems similar to
yours. This page appears to have some info about what you need to do
in order to get it going: http://mad-scientist.us/juniper.html (from
an Ubuntu perspective)

There are some sample JWS apps on
http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/desktop/javawebstart/demos.html
if you want to make sure your Java Web Start is working.

Since 64-bit Java from Sun is so new, I didn't really see many
references to the Juniper VPN from a 64-bit standpoint (just people
trying to get it working with 32-bit JWS in a 64-bit browser etc). One
person said they installed the 32-bit JVM to use with the VPN and used
64-bit with everything else. You may need to be the trailblazer. :)