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CWE-574: EJB Bad Practices: Use of Synchronization Primitives

 
EJB Bad Practices: Use of Synchronization Primitives
Weakness ID: 574 (Weakness Variant)Status: Draft
+ Description

Description Summary

The program violates the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) specification by using thread synchronization primitives.

Extended Description

The Enterprise JavaBeans specification requires that every bean provider follow a set of programming guidelines designed to ensure that the bean will be portable and behave consistently in any EJB container. In this case, the program violates the following EJB guideline: "An enterprise bean must not use thread synchronization primitives to synchronize execution of multiple instances." The specification justifies this requirement in the following way: "This rule is required to ensure consistent runtime semantics because while some EJB containers may use a single JVM to execute all enterprise bean's instances, others may distribute the instances across multiple JVMs."

+ Time of Introduction
  • Architecture and Design
  • Implementation
+ Applicable Platforms

Languages

Java

+ Common Consequences
ScopeEffect
Other

Technical Impact: Quality degradation

+ Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

In the following Java example a Customer Entity EJB provides access to customer information in a database for a business application.

(Bad Code)
Example Language: Java 
@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable {

private String id;
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
private Address address;

public Customer() {...}

public Customer(String id, String firstName, String lastName) {...}

@Id
public String getCustomerId() {...}

public synchronized void setCustomerId(String id) {...}

public String getFirstName() {...}

public synchronized void setFirstName(String firstName) {...}

public String getLastName() {...}

public synchronized void setLastName(String lastName) {...}

@OneToOne()
public Address getAddress() {...}

public synchronized void setAddress(Address address) {...}
}

However, the customer entity EJB uses the synchronized keyword for the set methods to attempt to provide thread safe synchronization for the member variables. The use of synchronized methods violate the restriction of the EJB specification against the use synchronization primitives within EJBs. Using synchronization primitives may cause inconsistent behavior of the EJB when used within different EJB containers.

+ Potential Mitigations

Do not use Synchronization Primitives when writing EJBs.

+ Relationships
NatureTypeIDNameView(s) this relationship pertains toView(s)
ChildOfWeakness BaseWeakness Base695Use of Low-Level Functionality
Development Concepts699
Research Concepts1000
ChildOfWeakness BaseWeakness Base821Incorrect Synchronization
Development Concepts (primary)699
Research Concepts (primary)1000
+ Content History
Modifications
Modification DateModifierOrganizationSource
2008-07-01Eric DalciCigitalExternal
updated Potential_Mitigations, Time_of_Introduction
2008-09-08CWE Content TeamMITREInternal
updated Relationships, Other_Notes
2009-10-29CWE Content TeamMITREInternal
updated Description, Other_Notes
2010-04-05CWE Content TeamMITREInternal
updated Demonstrative_Examples
2010-09-27CWE Content TeamMITREInternal
updated Relationships
2010-12-13CWE Content TeamMITREInternal
updated Relationships
2011-06-01CWE Content TeamMITREInternal
updated Common_Consequences
2011-06-27CWE Content TeamMITREInternal
updated Common_Consequences
Page Last Updated: September 12, 2011