Close SocketChannel in TcpNioClientConnectionFactory.buildNewConnection()

[anthologia]

Expected Behavior

• When a connection attempt fails, the SocketChannel should be properly closed, and resources should be released.
• Socket management should prevent the number of open sockets from increasing indefinitely during retries.

Current Behavior

• When the target server is down and TcpNioClientConnectionFactory.buildNewConnection() attempts to connect, java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: no further information is thrown. However, the socket connection is not closed, and the connection retry interval causes the number of sockets to increase indefinitely.
• When using singleUse=false, clientMode=true, and retryInterval, the number of open sockets increases indefinitely until the target server is up.

// TcpNioClientConnectionFactory class

@Override
protected TcpConnectionSupport buildNewConnection() {
	try {
		SocketChannel socketChannel = SocketChannel.open();
		setSocketAttributes(socketChannel.socket());
		connect(socketChannel);
		TcpNioConnection connection =
				this.tcpNioConnectionSupport.createNewConnection(socketChannel, false, isLookupHost(),
						getApplicationEventPublisher(), getComponentName());
		connection.setUsingDirectBuffers(this.usingDirectBuffers);
		connection.setTaskExecutor(getTaskExecutor());
		Integer sslHandshakeTimeout = getSslHandshakeTimeout();
		if (sslHandshakeTimeout != null && connection instanceof TcpNioSSLConnection) {
			((TcpNioSSLConnection) connection).setHandshakeTimeout(sslHandshakeTimeout);
		}
		TcpConnectionSupport wrappedConnection = wrapConnection(connection);
		if (!wrappedConnection.equals(connection)) {
			connection.setSenders(getSenders());
		}
		initializeConnection(wrappedConnection, socketChannel.socket());
		if (getSoTimeout() > 0) {
			connection.setLastRead(System.currentTimeMillis());
		}
		this.channelMap.put(socketChannel, connection);
		wrappedConnection.publishConnectionOpenEvent();
		this.newChannels.add(socketChannel);
		this.selector.wakeup();
		return wrappedConnection;
	}
	catch (IOException e) {
		throw new UncheckedIOException(e);
	}
	catch (InterruptedException e) {
		Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
		throw new UncheckedIOException(new IOException(e));
	}
}

private void connect(SocketChannel socketChannel) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
	socketChannel.configureBlocking(false);
	socketChannel.connect(new InetSocketAddress(getHost(), getPort()));
	boolean connected = socketChannel.finishConnect();
	long timeLeft = getConnectTimeout().toMillis();
	while (!connected && timeLeft > 0) {
		Thread.sleep(5); // NOSONAR Magic #
		connected = socketChannel.finishConnect();
		timeLeft -= 5; // NOSONAR Magic #
	}
	if (!connected) {
	throw new IOException("Not connected after connectTimeout");
		}
}

Context

• I believe this may cause resource leakage, as each failed connection attempt opens a new socket that is never closed.
• I think that when the server is down and the connection fails, the socket should be properly closed, and resources should be released.
• I'm wondering if adding socketChannel.close() in the event of a connection failure would be a good solution, or if I might be misunderstanding the intended behavior of TcpNioClientConnectionFactory.buildNewConnection().

[artembilan]

I'm not sure how to test it, by I believe that your observation is correct.
Feel free to contribute the fix: https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-integration/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.adoc.
I'm curious what kind of test you see to verify this logic.
See TcpNioConnectionTests for more info.
Thanks

[anthologia]

This is what i found a socket leak issue.
Please check with netstat or lsof while running this test:

@Test
public void test() throws Exception {
	final CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(1);

	TcpNioClientConnectionFactory factory =
			new TcpNioClientConnectionFactory("1.2.3.4", 11111);
	factory.setSingleUse(false);
	factory.setConnectTimeout(0);
	factory.start();

	ThreadPoolTaskScheduler taskScheduler = new ThreadPoolTaskScheduler();
	taskScheduler.initialize();

	TcpSendingMessageHandler handler = new TcpSendingMessageHandler();
	handler.setConnectionFactory(factory);
	handler.setClientMode(true);
	handler.setRetryInterval(1000);
	handler.setTaskScheduler(taskScheduler);
	handler.start();

	latch.await(5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}

Each retry attempt creates a new socket as exceptions occur, leading to socket resource leakage.

[artembilan]

That's good!
Any idea how would we verify that from unit test?
Isn't there some tool in Java which could that something similar for us?
Thanks

[anthologia]

It seems we can use Runtime to execute OS commands to check this. However, this approach would require different commands depending on the OS.

I believe tests should succeed in an OS-independent manner. However, I found that one of the classes in Spring Integration uses tail, which is a Unix-specific command.

Given that, should I assume that only Unix environments need to be supported?

[artembilan]

Thanks for the explanation !
I don’t think that we can use tail because that one is there in the framework only for files. Plus indeed OS-specific . However it works in some way on my Windows with WSL.
Either way, we don’t want to be tied to some not stable tool just to be sure that the fix we did is covered.
I believe this is a situation when your analysis is fully enough to justify the change.
I’ll review it tomorrow again and merge.
Thank you again !