Setting the timeout value for a JAX-RPC Web Service client

Resolving The Problem

For a JSR 109-compliant JAX-RPC client, there are Web service client deployment descriptors that are packaged with the application. Specifically, the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi deployment descriptor is used to control the client timeout. This deployment descriptor has a syncTimeout property. The default for this timeout value is 5 seconds. To set the syncTimeout property, see the following directions in the product documentation for WebSphere Application Server:

Configuring the JAX-RPC web services client bindings in the ibm-webservicesclient-bnd.xmi deployment descriptor

Some JAX-RPC clients do not have this deployment descriptor. These clients are not JSR 109-compliant. You can alternatively set the timeout value on the stub using the setTimeout method. Here is sample code to set the timeout value on a stub:

package mypackage;
import com.ibm.ws.webservices.engine.client.Stub;

public class J2SEClient {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try
{
HelloWorldServiceLocator hwsl = new HelloWorldServiceLocator();
HelloWorld hw = hwsl.getHelloWorld();
((Stub) hw).setTimeout(60000);
hw.sayHello();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

In the previous sample code, the parameter for the setTimeout method is the number of milliseconds the client should wait for a response from the provider.

To ensure that this timeout is set properly in WebSphere Application Server V6.0, the following trace specification can be used:

com.ibm.ws.webservices.engine.*=all

In the trace, the HttpOutboundChannelConnection class will output the following:

WSWS3494I: syncTimeout value is 420 seconds to wait for response to the current SOAP over HTTP request.

Notes:

• The operating system timeouts might cause the connection to time out before the syncTimeout length.
  
• Setting the time-out to 0 will prevent the readTimeout from happening (for example, the client will not time out)
• If the timeout is less than 1000 milliseconds, WebSphere JAX-RPC Web Services engine we will treat it as an invalid timeout setting and try to convert its to timeout*1000.
• WebSphere JAX-RPC Web Services engine does not support to set the timeout less than 1000 milliseconds.