Netty IdleStateHandler problem - am I checking this incorrectly?

Question

I have a toy Netty server, and I'm trying to send heartbeat messages to clients when nothing happened on their channels. I test this by telnetting to the server, write a message, and then send nothing, but I can not hear!

Console:

>>telnet localhost 6969
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
>>foo
Did you say 'foo'?

MyPipelineFactory.java

public class MyPipelineFactory implements ChannelPipelineFactory {
    private final Timer timer;
    private static final ChannelHandler stringDecoder = new StringDecoder();
    private static final ChannelHandler stringEncoder = new StringEncoder();
    private final ChannelHandler idleStateHandler;

    public MyPipelineFactory(Timer t) {
        this.timer = t;
        this.idleStateHandler = new IdleStateHandler(timer, 5, 5, 5);
    }

    public ChannelPipeline getPipeline() {
        // create default pipeline from static method
        ChannelPipeline pipeline = Channels.pipeline();
        pipeline.addLast("idleStateHandler", this.idleStateHandler); // heartbeat
        pipeline.addLast("framer", new DelimiterBasedFrameDecoder(1024, Delimiters.lineDelimiter()));
        //pipeline.addLast("frameDecoder", new LengthFieldBasedFrameDecoder(1024,0,1)); // get header from message
        pipeline.addLast("stringDecoder", stringDecoder);
        pipeline.addLast("stringEncoder", stringEncoder);
        pipeline.addLast("ServerHandler", new ServerHandler()); // goes at the end

        return pipeline;
    }
}

HeartbeatHandler.java

public class HeartbeatHandler extends IdleStateAwareChannelHandler {

    @Override
    public void channelIdle(ChannelHandlerContext ctx, IdleStateEvent e) {
        if (e.getState() == IdleState.READER_IDLE) {
            System.out.println("Reader idle, closing channel");
            //e.getChannel().close();
            e.getChannel().write("heartbeat-reader_idle");
        }
        else if (e.getState() == IdleState.WRITER_IDLE) {
            System.out.println("Writer idle, sending heartbeat");
            e.getChannel().write("heartbeat-writer_idle");
        }
        else if (e.getState() == IdleState.ALL_IDLE) {
            System.out.println("All idle, sending heartbeat");
            e.getChannel().write("heartbeat-all_idle");
        }
    }
}

---

Fixed

I forgot to have a HeartbeatHandler that requires an IdleStateHandler (this part was not obvious to me). It works.

public class MyPipelineFactory implements ChannelPipelineFactory {
    private final Timer timer;
    private static final ChannelHandler stringDecoder = new StringDecoder();
    private static final ChannelHandler stringEncoder = new StringEncoder();
    private final ChannelHandler idleStateHandler;
    private final ChannelHandler heartbeatHandler;

    public MyPipelineFactory(Timer t) {
        this.timer = t;
        this.idleStateHandler = new IdleStateHandler(timer, 5, 5, 5);
        this.heartbeatHandler = new HeartbeatHandler();
    }

    public ChannelPipeline getPipeline() {
        // create default pipeline from static method
        ChannelPipeline pipeline = Channels.pipeline();
        pipeline.addLast("idleStateHandler", this.idleStateHandler);
        pipeline.addLast("heartbeatHandler", this.heartbeatHandler); // heartbeat
        pipeline.addLast("framer", new DelimiterBasedFrameDecoder(1024, Delimiters.lineDelimiter()));
        //pipeline.addLast("frameDecoder", new LengthFieldBasedFrameDecoder(1024,0,1)); // get header from message
        pipeline.addLast("stringDecoder", stringDecoder);
        pipeline.addLast("stringEncoder", stringEncoder);
        pipeline.addLast("ServerHandler", new ServerHandler()); // goes at the end

        return pipeline;
    }
}

Answer 1

You skipped adding HeartbeatHandler to ChannelPipeline. You need to add IdleStateHandler AND HeartbeatHandler to ChannelPipeline for it to work.

Answer 2

Normans , : idleStateHandler heartbeatHandler , PipeLineFactory , getPipeline(). , , , .