Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

Howdy all,

I've been trawling the forums looking for a solution to this, but haven't yet found it. Here's what I want to do:

I want to have a client establish an HTTP/S connection to a server (servlet container underneath), and hold the connection open until I explicitly invoke close() on the socket's in/out streams.

On the server, I want the inbound request to be added to a separate thread where it will wait indefinitely for input from the client, and indeed be able to stream data back to the client.

Basically I just want a simple client/server socket connection, but wrapped in SSL and firewall friendly. So client establishes "permanent" outbound connection, which effectively "never" closes.

In my test environment I have a simple servlet which captures the in/out streams from the request/response coming in and attaches them to an object running in a separate thread. The intention is that the servlet will return pretty much immediately, but I can access a "live" connection to the client at a future point in time.

On the client I am using commons http to establish an HTTP connection to the server, and basically wait for data (InputStream.read().. assuming this blocks until data arrives).

The problem is that despite my attempts to set "Keep-Alive" headers in every place but my ear, the connection is closes (presumably by the servlet container) as soon as the servlet exits.

Any way I can retain a persistent HTTP/S connection through which I can send data back and forth whenever I choose?

Cheers.