Common Object Request Broker Architecture Avatar
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Common Object Request Broker Architecture — Open Issues

  • Acronym: CORBA
  • Issues Count: 22
  • Description: Issues not resolved
Open Closed All
Issues not resolved

Issues Summary

Key Issue Reported Fixed Disposition Status
CORBA35-311 Proxified object references CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-312 How to obtain initial reference to the GIOPProxy object CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-310 Reusing PASSTHRU CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-309 Clarification is needed on the passing of credentials CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-308 Problems with routing and/or traversal of firewalls. CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-306 Use of InvokeId as the type name for both invoke id and link id. CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-305 When does a multiassociation TcUse know that it has been finished with? CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-304 Why one to one association between a TcPduUser and TcPduProvider interface? CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-303 Specification Translation from ASN to IDL issue CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-302 TcPdu User and Provider interfaces CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-301 use of the SSN number in the 1988 TCAP version CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-211 CosConsurrencyControl service bug or not? CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-174 Issue: CSIv2 Identity Assertion CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-214 Correction of CORBA specification (page 18-51) CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-300 Allow GIOP 1.3 messages to be transported. CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-298 Missing definition on security tags in the SIOP CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-299 There is currently no valuetype support in SIOP. CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-297 Use of PolicyType id CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-175 Polymorphic Valuetypes and the DII CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-176 DynValue & custom valuetypes CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-177 Custom Value Marshaling Issue CORBA 2.3.1 open
CORBA35-307 Traversal algorithm not sufficient CORBA 2.3.1 open

Issues Descriptions

Proxified object references

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2865
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    Summary: Proxified object references obtained by invoking
    new_target() should not be passed between ORBs. Instead the original IOR
    containing the target and firewall information should be passed. The reason
    for this is that the IOR does not contain enough information to inform the
    second ORB whether or not it is a reference for a NORMAL or PASSTHRU
    connection, or whether it is a proxified reference at all. This issue is
    very tightly related to issue 2, so we will describe how it fails for each
    of the possible solutions to the PASSTHRU establishment problem outlined in
    issue 2.
    One solution for which this is not an issue is the solution
    of using a port per target. However, this is not a viable solution because
    it is restrictive and will fail under moderate load. For solution 1 we
    don"t have a problem because no object reference is returned by
    set_target(), therefore it cannot be passed to other ORBs. For solution 2
    we have a problem because the second ORB won"t know whether it is supposed
    to first invoke start_passthru() or simply start making requests. Therefore
    it may get a connection type that it wasn"t expecting. For solution 3 we
    have a problem because once the original connection has been made, the
    reference is invalid. This occurs because the firewall does not have
    knowledge of how many clients are expected to try to connect to that target,
    and it may attempt to claim that port for reuse before another client has
    connected.

    Proposed Solution:
    The passing of object references obtained by invoking
    new_target() should be expressly prohibited by the specification. One
    example is, "The object reference returned by new_target() may not be passed
    to another client. Instead the original reference that was passed as the
    argument to new_target() must be passed to the second client, and the second
    client will follow the rules of the traversal algorithm to reach the desired
    target."

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

How to obtain initial reference to the GIOPProxy object

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2864
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    Summary: Description:
    The specification does not outline a specific method by
    which to obtain the initial reference to the GIOPProxy object. We believe
    that an interoperable solution for obtaining this initial reference is
    needed in order to insure that all implementations will be able to be
    correctly configured to contact all other implementations.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Reusing PASSTHRU

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2866
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    Summary: Description:
    Reusing PASSTHRU connections by the firewall should be
    expressly disallowed by the specification. With the current wording of the
    specification, a vendor may attempt to reuse PASSTHRU connections. While
    this will work in some cases, it is not interoperable because there are
    cases when reusing PASSTHRU connections will not work. For example,
    connection reuse when SSL is in use will not work because all of the
    information that distinguishes data streams is contained within the
    encrypted portion of SSL packets. If two SSL connections try to share a
    single connection, there will be an SSL protocol failure because the server
    will not be able to separate the data streams before it processes the SSL
    packet.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Clarification is needed on the passing of credentials

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2867
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    Summary: Description:
    Clarification is needed on the passing of credentials.
    Section 4.7.3 states that "Since all proxies will have access to the IOR of
    the target object, and the certificate of the client, they can judge whether
    this client may use a pass-through connection or not." Section 4.12 states
    that "When a client establishes a normal connection to a target via a
    trusted proxy and uses a secure transport (e.g. IIOP/SSL), in order to
    achieve end-to-end authentication, the proxy will have to forward the
    client"s certificate/identity to the server." Section 4.12 implies that the
    ForwardedIdentity service context will only be used when using a secure
    transport, but section 4.7.3 implies that the client certificate will always
    be available. In fact, the ForwardedIdentity service context should only be
    used in the case of a NORMAL connection using a secure transport because
    those are the only conditions under which there is a notion of trust between
    a requestor and the recipient of that request. This means that the only
    mechanism upon which to base a decision of whether or not to allow a
    PASSTHRU connection is the source host address/port.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Problems with routing and/or traversal of firewalls.

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2868
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    Summary: Issues 7-9 refer to problems with routing and/or traversal of firewalls.
    These problems arise due to a lack of required information about firewall
    topology in the IOR. Most of these problems could be eliminated if it were
    required that the servers place the entire chain of server-side firewalls
    that must be traversed into the IOR. Specifically, the first paragraph in
    section 4.8 should be modified so that the entire chain of firewalls is
    always required, or those situations in which it should be required should
    be stated. Some of those situations are outlined in the following issues.
    Specifically, it is incorrect to state that "strictly it is only necessary
    to convey information on the outermost inbound firewall."

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Use of InvokeId as the type name for both invoke id and link id.

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2915
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Ericsson ( Neill Jones)
  • Summary:

    The idl is

    struct TcLinkedContext

    { DialogFlowCtr ctr; InvokeId ivk_id; InvokeId lnk_id; AssociationId a_id; }

    ;

    While it is correct that these are both of the same type, the name of the type
    could be confusing.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

When does a multiassociation TcUse know that it has been finished with?

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2916
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Ericsson ( Neill Jones)
  • Summary:

    The creation of a TcUser interface with multiple associations does not have
    a standardised way for destruction.

    Proposed solutions

    1. Add a destroy() method to TcUser
    2. Explicitly state in the RFP that the CosLifeCycle::destroy() method should
    be called once the object is no longer required.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Why one to one association between a TcPduUser and TcPduProvider interface?

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2917
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Ericsson ( Neill Jones)
  • Summary:

    There is an assumption in the design that there is a one to one
    association between a TcPduUser and a TcPduProvider
    during a TC Session. This is enforced in the IDL through the
    call

    TcPduProvider::get_dialog_id()

    and the factory call

    TcPduProvider create_tc_pdu_provider(
    in TcPduUser user,
    out DialogId d_id)
    raises(NoMoreDialogs);

    Since the TcPduUser reference (or some sort of reference)
    is not passed over in get_dialog_id(), the only conclusion
    is that the reference has to be the one passed over in the
    create, and therefore that each TcPduProvider is tied to
    one and only one TcPduUser.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Specification Translation from ASN to IDL issue

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2918
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Ericsson ( Neill Jones)
  • Summary:

    The Specification Translation from ASN to IDL does not appear to
    require that each OPERATION carries a NoMoreAssociations exception.

    This is necessary if the use of DialogFlowCtr can implicitly create a new
    association during a call on an object that supports multiple associations.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

TcPdu User and Provider interfaces

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2919
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Ericsson ( Neill Jones)
  • Summary:

    As the interfaces currently stand, there is a minimum of 5 CORBA calls
    per transaction
    1. either TcPduProvider::get_dialog_id
    or TcPduProviderFactory::create_tc_pdu_provider
    2. TcPduProvider::invoke_req
    3. TcPduProvider::begin_req
    4. TcPduUser::end_ind
    5. TcPduUser::result_l_ind

    Given that a CORBA call is about 1 millisecond on average,
    this makes for a highly inefficient interface from a high-performance
    perspective,
    and renders the distribution of these interfaces undesirable, and the
    use of the TcPduProvider/User interfaces unlikely in a real system.

    Ideally this should be reduced to a minimum of 2 CORBA calls, one for a call
    going out, and one for the reply.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Wed, 22 Sep 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

use of the SSN number in the 1988 TCAP version

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2982
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    As far as I can see when using the 1988 TCAP version the submission
    does not seems to handle the case where the subsystem number (SSN) is
    used to seperate between several TC-User protcols per GT (typically
    protocols from different vendors). The naming tree proposed for the
    1988 TCAP protocol can only store one TC-User protocol per GT, that is
    only one DefAc per GT can be stored (see section 4.3.1.1 in the
    proposal).

    The use of the SSN number for this purpose is explained in chapter
    4.2.3 in the second paragraph in the ITU Recommendation Q.775.

    It should be easy to fix this as one only have to use the same naming
    tree structure proposed for the 1993 TCAP version in these cases.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Mon, 8 Nov 1999 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

CosConsurrencyControl service bug or not?

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3522
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    I develop CosConcurrencyControl service for JacORB, but I don't
    understud from specification how client can destroy LockSet.
    When I create Object which allow concurrency access, I create LockSet.
    When I destroy this Object I must destroy LockSet, because it's garbage,
    bu no way for this does not exists.

    As solution of this problem, I add in CosConcurrencyControl.idl next
    changes:
    exception LockExists{};

    and method
    void destroy raises (LockExists);

    in interface LockSet.

    As I undestand this changes is wrong, but have you idea about desigion
    this problem.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 28 Mar 2000 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Issue: CSIv2 Identity Assertion

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3907
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Syracuse University ( Polar Humenn)
  • Summary:

    Issue on Document orbos/2000-08-04, CSIv2 Joint Submission

    Document: orbos/2000-08-04, CSIv2 Joint Submission
    Subject: Identity Assertion of X.501 Distinguished Name is not good enough
    Severity: Critical

    Summary:

    The Identity Token union contains a branch that is labled
    X501DistinguishedName. A single DN is insufficient to identify an entity.
    A path of X501Distinguished Names is needed instead. Also, other concerns
    about naming types are raised.

    Discussion:

    An X.501 Distinguished Name is insufficient to identify a single entity.
    The name must be accompanied by the name of its defining authority. In the
    case of public key certificates, the names certificate authority must be
    included.

    The chain of DNs in this manner must be included up to a root authority
    to have any definitive meaning.

    This approach will be consistent with the client sending a X.509
    Certificate Chain. A DN path is actually defined by the certificate chain.

    Furthermore, the DN path should only come from an authority that is
    acceptable to the server, whether it be a DN path, or an X.509
    Certificate Chain.

    The IOR should list the acceptable authorities and their name types.

    It is becoming more an more evident that we must invent GSS_NT_Export_Name
    types for X.509 Certificate Chain and X.501 DN path.

    The SAS_ContextSec structure should list, instead of the naming types,
    the naming authorities!

    We shall assume that the name types of the asserted identities shall be
    the same as the name types of listed naming authorities in the IOR.

    This is the only way this procedure can work Interoperable and without
    the client Guessing what it should do.

    Suggestions:

    An OID for an X.509 Public Key Certificate Chain shall be defined for a
    GSS Export Name, and its encoding will be a ASN1 sequence of and X.509
    certificate with the least significant certificate first.

    An OID for an X.501 Distinguished Name Path shall be defined for a GSS
    Exported Name, and its encoding shall be an ASN1 sequence of an X.501
    Distinguished Name with the least significant name first.

    To avoid having the target put a whole certificate chain in its IOR,
    a new OID shall be allocated in which its GSS Exported Name encoding is a
    X.501 DN path, but stipulates that the client should send a certificate
    chain from that named authority. This GSS Exported Name shall only be
    used in IORs and not for transmission in the Identity Token.

    typedef Security::GSS_NT_ExportedName NamingAuthority;

    struct CompoundSecMech

    { Security::AssociationOptions target_requires; IOP::TaggedComponent transport_mech; sequence<ServiceConfiguration> privilege_authorities; sequence<NamingAuthority> naming_authorities; }

    ;

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Wed, 20 Sep 2000 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:56 GMT

Correction of CORBA specification (page 18-51)

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3342
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    >You write on page 18-51:
    >In COM V2.0, interfaces can have single inheritance. However, as opposed to
    >CORBA,
    >there is a standard mechanism by which an object can have multiple interfaces
    >(without
    >an inheritance relationship between those interfaces) and by which clients can
    >query
    >for these at run-time. (It defines no common way to determine if two interface
    >references refer to the same object, or to enumerate all the interfaces
    >supported by an
    >entity.)
    >
    >It's not right, that there's no common way to determine if two interface
    >references refer to the same object. The IUnknown-Pointer of two different
    >interfaces of the same object must be the same (object identity in COM).

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 22 Feb 2000 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:15 GMT

Allow GIOP 1.3 messages to be transported.

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3184
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Siemens AG ( Nils Fischbeck)
  • Summary:

    Align SIOP definition with GIOP 1.3 of CORBA2.3.1.

    Problem: SIOP is currently defined to carry GIOP messages with version 1.2
    and lower.

    Proposed Solution: Allow GIOP 1.3 messages to be transported.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Fri, 7 Jan 2000 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:14 GMT

Missing definition on security tags in the SIOP

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3314
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Dublin City University ( Robert Brennan)
  • Summary:

    There are security tags mentioned in the SIOP
    document but no definition of how to use them is ever given.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Thu, 10 Feb 2000 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:14 GMT

There is currently no valuetype support in SIOP.

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3313
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Dublin City University ( Robert Brennan)
  • Summary:
  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Thu, 10 Feb 2000 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:14 GMT

Use of PolicyType id

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3363
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Thematix Partners LLC ( Jishnu Mukerji [X] (Inactive))
  • Summary:

    While editing the changes from the Firewall RTF into Core Chapter 15 I noticed a
    curious thing in the Firewall RTF report. It seems that the RTF chose to re-use
    a PolicyType id for a new and different policy while obsoleting a published one.
    The PolicyType Id in question is 37, which used to be BIDIRECTIONAL_POLICY_TYPE
    associated with the structure BiDirPolicy::BidirectionalPolicy

    and is now proposed to be BIDIRECTIONAL_INVOKE_POLICY associated with structure
    BiDirPolicy::InvokeMode.

    This appears to me to be a dangerous practice, since the fact that the published
    standard may have been implemented by someone using the obsolete definition.

    I would like to suggest that the recommendation of the Firewall RTF be modified
    leaving the published policy type and policy as is with a note stating that it
    is obsolete, and a new policy type id be allocated for
    BIDIRECTIONAL_INVOKE_POLICY.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Fri, 25 Feb 2000 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:14 GMT

Polymorphic Valuetypes and the DII

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3674
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Humboldt-Universitaet ( Martin von Loewis)
  • Summary:

    Using the static invocation interfaces, it is possible to receive a
    valuetype that derives from the one declared in an operation, as long
    as a valuetype factory is known in the receiver (truncation is not the
    issue here).

    The same is not possible at the DII: When creating the request, the
    caller must indicate what type it expects, by forming a named value.
    Conceptually, the typecode in the named value should be the typecode
    of the base of all acceptable value types. However, if the ORB
    receives a derived type, it has no means of unmarshalling it - even if
    the application has knowledge about the derived type.

    What is missing is an interface to make typecodes of value types known
    to the ORB; with those, the ORB could then understand the CDR of the
    valuetype, and create a DynAny when asked to.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Wed, 7 Jun 2000 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 19:59 GMT

DynValue & custom valuetypes

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3459
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Floorboard Software ( Jonathan Biggar)
  • Summary:

    The CORBA 2.3.1 specification does not cover the interaction between the
    DynValue interface and custom valuetypes.

    I frankly don't see any way that the DynValue interface can possibly
    correctly handle a custom valuetype when the ORB does not have a factory
    for the type. It is theoretically possible for DynValue to properly
    work with a known custom type, but the implementation strategy could not
    be based on parsing the marshalled form of the valuetype.

    So, there are two issues that need to be addressed:

    1. Should DynValue handle custom valuetypes at all?

    2. For the set of custom valuetypes that it cannot handle, what
    exceptions should be raised by each operations?

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Sat, 25 Mar 2000 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 19:59 GMT

Custom Value Marshaling Issue

  • Legacy Issue Number: 3097
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Camros Corporation ( Jeffrey Marshall)
  • Summary:

    Due to the way that custom values are marshaled it is
    nearly impossible for a bridge (or other process) to
    process/forward GIOP messages which contain custom
    marshaled values (which the bridge has no compile/run-time
    knowledge of).

    The main issue is that the "alignment" of the
    custom marshaled data is unknown, other than the
    data will always start on a four byte boundry due
    to the presence of chunking.

    Should/could the value encoding format be changed to
    enforce eight byte alignment for all custom marshaled
    data (chunks)? This would allow bridges and other
    tools to process->[store]->forward messages containing
    custom values.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 7 Dec 1999 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 19:59 GMT

Traversal algorithm not sufficient

  • Legacy Issue Number: 2869
  • Status: open  
  • Source: Anonymous
  • Summary:

    Summary: Description:
    There may be some network topologies where the traversal
    algorithm is not sufficient for a firewall to find a server. This is due to
    an unstated assumption that all addresses within the outermost inbound
    firewall are addressable from the outermost inbound firewall. Consider for
    example the following topology:

    -----*Firewall
    B*-----Network B
    Internet -----Firewall A---------
    -----*Firewall
    C*-----Network C

    Service Network (DMZ)

    Assume that the addresses on the service network are
    globally routable addresses, Network B uses RFC 1597 addresses and Network C
    uses RFC 1597 addresses. This topology could be possible, say for a
    government agency that has sub-agencies that share some resources (service
    network) but maintain separately administrated networks. In this case the
    outermost inbound firewall for a server on Network B or C is Firewall A.
    However, when new target is invoked on Firewall A, it won"t know from the
    host address whether to open a connection to Firewall B or Firewall C.

    Proposed Solution:
    There are several possible solutions to this problem:
    1) Explicitly state the assumption described in the
    description section
    2) Mandate that implementations allow for the
    configuration of the next inbound firewalls
    3) Mandate that servers on Network B or C in such
    configurations use Firewall B or C as the outermost inbound firewall.

    There may be other solutions to this problem. These were
    the ones that immediately presented themselves.

  • Reported: CORBA 2.3.1 — Tue, 24 Aug 1999 04:00 GMT
  • Updated: Wed, 6 Dec 2023 23:05 GMT