Best way to handle many clients (with threads?)

So my question goes here. Now if my Server has over 20 clients, it also has 20 threads and my desktop with an ryzen CPU goes to 100% at usage at 30 Threads. Now I'd like to handle a mass-amount of clients by one server, but the CPU is just getting over-used. My wise is very simple how I do it, but there must be a better way; because I saw many good java servers so far yet. I don't know what I do wrong though. In the following I share my code, how I do it in principle.

while(this.isRunning()) {
ServerSocket server = new ServerSocket(8081);
Socket s = server.accept();
new Thread(new WorkerRunnable(s)).start();
//now here if e.g. over 25 users connect there are 25 threads. CPU is at 100%. Is there a better way to handle this?

The worker runnable is identifing the clients. After that they will get into a chat-room. Its like a group chat for e.g.

Edit: Relevant parts of my very unfinished code which is still very WIP

private boolean state;
private ServerSocket socket;
@Override
public void run() {
while(this.isRunning()==true) {
try {
if(this.socket==null) this.socket = new ServerSocket(this.getPort());
Socket connection = this.socket.accept();
IntroductionSession session = new IntroductionSession(this, connection);
new Thread(session).start();
//register timeout task for 3 secs and handle it async
System.out.println(ManagementFactory.getThreadMXBean().getThreadCount());
//this.handleIncomingConnection(connection);
} catch(Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
//System.exit(1);
}
}
}

private class IntroductionSession implements Runnable {
private boolean alive = true;

	private BaseServer server;
private Socket socket;
private boolean introduced = false;
public IntroductionSession(BaseServer server, Socket socket) {
this.server = server;
this.socket = socket;
}
private void interrupt() {
System.out.println("Not mroe alive");
this.alive = false;
}
private void killConnection() {
this.killConnection("no_reason");
}
private void killConnection(String reason) {
try {
if(this.from_client!=null) this.from_client.close();
if(this.to_client!=null) this.to_client.close();
this.socket.close();
switch(reason) {
case "didnt_introduce":
System.out.println("Kicked connection, cause it didn't introduce itself");
break;
case "unknown_type":
System.out.println("Kicked unknown connection-type.");
break;
case "no_reason":
default:
//ignore
break;
}
} catch (IOException e) {
switch(reason) {
case "didnt_introduce":
System.out.println("Error at kicking connection, which didn't introduce itself");
break;
case "unknown_type":
System.out.println("Error at kicking unknown connection-type.");
break;
case "no_reason":
default:
System.out.println("Error occured at kicking connection");
break;
}
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private ObjectInputStream from_client;
private ObjectOutputStream to_client;
@Override
public void run() {
while(this.alive==true) {
try {
if(this.to_client==null) {
this.to_client = new ObjectOutputStream(this.socket.getOutputStream());
//this.to_client.flush();
}
if(this.from_client==null) this.from_client = new ObjectInputStream(this.socket.getInputStream());
//Time runs now, if socket is inactive its getting kicked
new Timer().schedule(new java.util.TimerTask() {
@Override
public void run() {
if(IntroductionSession.this.introduced==false) {
IntroductionSession.this.killConnection("didnt_introduce");
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
IntroductionSession.this.interrupt();
}
}
}, 5000
);
Object obj = this.from_client.readObject();
while(obj!=null) {
if(obj instanceof IntroductionPacket) {
IntroductionPacket pk = (IntroductionPacket) obj;
introduced = true;
if(isCompatible(pk)==false) {
try {
this.to_client.writeObject(new DifferentVersionKickPacket(BaseServer.version));
this.to_client.close();
this.from_client.close();
IntroductionSession.this.socket.close();
System.out.println("Kicked socket, which uses another version.");
} catch(Exception e) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
//ignore
System.out.println("Error at kicking incompatible socket.");
e.printStackTrace();
}
} else {
this.server.handleIncomingConnection(this.socket, this.from_client, this.to_client);
}
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
} catch(StreamCorruptedException e) {
//unknown client-type = kick
this.killConnection("unknown_type");
} catch (IOException|ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
this.killConnection("no_reason");
}/* catch(SocketException e) {
}*/
}
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}

Extending class, which is an actual server:

@Override
public void handleIncomingConnection(Socket connection, ObjectInputStream from_client, ObjectOutputStream to_client) {
new AuthenticationSession(connection, from_client, to_client).run();
}
private class AuthenticationSession implements Runnable {
private Socket socket;
private ObjectInputStream from_client;
private ObjectOutputStream to_client;
public AuthenticationSession(Socket socket, ObjectInputStream from_client, ObjectOutputStream to_client) {
this.socket = socket;
this.to_client = to_client;
this.from_client = from_client;
}
//TODO: Implement app id for access tokens
@Override
public void run() {
try {
while(this.socket.isConnected()==true) {
/*ObjectOutputStream to_client = new ObjectOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream()); //maybe cause problems, do it later if it does
ObjectInputStream from_client = new ObjectInputStream(socket.getInputStream());*/
Object object = from_client.readObject();
while(object!=null) {
if(object instanceof RegisterPacket) {
RegisterPacket regPacket = (RegisterPacket) object;
System.out.println("Username:" + regPacket + ", password: " + regPacket.password + ", APP-ID: " + regPacket.appId);
} else {
System.out.println("IP " + this.socket.getInetAddress().getHostAddress() + ":" + this.socket.getPort() + " tried to send an unknown packet.");
this.socket.close();
}
}
}
}/* catch(EOFException eofe) {
//unexpected disconnect
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}*/
catch(Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
System.exit(1);
}
/*catch(Exception e) {
//e.printStackTrace();
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}*/
}
}

Please dont look at its very bad formatting and stuff I did in hope to fix it, the tasks dont die whyever though.

Since you are doing a Chat Application you need to think of doing a Single Threaded Event Loop.

You can Keep a Map of String (Client id) and Socket (Client socket).

Map<String, Socket> clientSockets;

You Server thread will accept new Client Sockets and will just put it in the above map. Then there will be another Thread which will do the Event Loop and whenever there is data in any of the Client Socket in InputStream it should send that data to all other Client Sockets (Group Chat). This should happen infinitely with a Sleep interval.

Generally, in production grade server code, we don't work with direct creation of socket and handling of requests. It's a nightmare to work with low level sockets, close connections and prevent leaks. Rather, we rely on production grade frameworks such as Java Spring Framework or Play Framework.

My question is, why aren't you using any server-side frameworks such as the ones I listed above?

1. If you're wondering how these frameworks handle thousands of concurrent requests, look into design patterns such as Thread Pool. These frameworks abstract away the complexities and handle the thread pool for you.

2. If the clients aren't expected to receive an immediate response, you could also look into introducing messaging queue such as Kafka. The server will pick the messages one by one from the queue and process them. However, bear in mind that this is asynchronous and may not meet your requirements.

3. If you're not just restricted to one server, you could look into deploying your server code to Azure or AWS VMSS (Virtual machine scale set). Based on CPU load rules you configure, the system will autoscale and dynamically manage resources for you.

I would suggest reading upon system design principles related to servers to reinforce your understanding.

> Don't reinvent the wheel.