A {@link ServerSocketChannelFactory} which creates a server-side NIO-based{@link ServerSocketChannel}. It utilizes the non-blocking I/O mode which was introduced with NIO to serve many number of concurrent connections efficiently.
How threads work
There are two types of threads in a {@link NioServerSocketChannelFactory}; one is boss thread and the other is worker thread.
Boss threads
Each bound {@link ServerSocketChannel} has its own boss thread.For example, if you opened two server ports such as 80 and 443, you will have two boss threads. A boss thread accepts incoming connections until the port is unbound. Once a connection is accepted successfully, the boss thread passes the accepted {@link Channel} to one of the workerthreads that the {@link NioServerSocketChannelFactory} manages.
Worker threads
One {@link NioServerSocketChannelFactory} can have one or more workerthreads. A worker thread performs non-blocking read and write for one or more {@link Channel}s in a non-blocking mode.
Life cycle of threads and graceful shutdown
All threads are acquired from the {@link Executor}s which were specified when a {@link NioServerSocketChannelFactory} was created. Boss threads areacquired from the {@code bossExecutor}, and worker threads are acquired from the {@code workerExecutor}. Therefore, you should make sure the specified {@link Executor}s are able to lend the sufficient number of threads. It is the best bet to specify {@linkplain Executors#newCachedThreadPool() a cached thread pool}.
Both boss and worker threads are acquired lazily, and then released when there's nothing left to process. All the related resources such as {@link Selector} are also released when the boss and worker threads arereleased. Therefore, to shut down a service gracefully, you should do the following:
- unbind all channels created by the factory,
- close all child channels accepted by the unbound channels, and (these two steps so far is usually done using {@link ChannelGroup#close()})
- call {@link #releaseExternalResources()}.
Please make sure not to shut down the executor until all channels are closed. Otherwise, you will end up with a {@link RejectedExecutionException}and the related resources might not be released properly.
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