In its typical usage, a Registry enables RMI client bootstrapping: it provides a simple means for a client to obtain an initial reference to a remote object. Therefore, a registry's remote object implementation is typically exported with a well-known address, such as with a well-known ObjID and TCP port number (default is 1099).

The LocateRegistry class provides a programmatic API for constructing a bootstrap reference to a Registry at a remote address (see the static getRegistry methods) and for creating and exporting a Registry in the current VM on a particular local address (see the static createRegistry methods).

A Registry implementation may choose to restrict access to some or all of its methods (for example, methods that mutate the registry's bindings may be restricted to calls originating from the local host). If a Registry method chooses to deny access for a given invocation, its implementation may throw AccessException, which (because it extends RemoteException) will be wrapped in a ServerException when caught by a remote client.

The names used for bindings in a Registry are pure strings, not parsed. A service which stores its remote reference in a Registry may wish to use a package name as a prefix in the name binding to reduce the likelihood of name collisions in the registry.