I've been troubleshooting and configuring Tomcat most of the day, some of which was related to configuring java.util.logging for a third party application. To check some configuration options were being picked up, I decided to tweak the Tomcat start script to expose the JVM's MBean server. Since the Tomcat server was running on a Linux box and I didn't have a full X windows session available to me, I decided to remotely expose the MBean server so that I could connect to it from my Windows machine. That all worked fine but I soon ran into some problems.

• My (borrowed) Windows box only had the 1.4 and 1.5 JREs installed.
• JConsole isn't included with the JRE.
• I couldn't install the Java SDK because it requires that you have local admin rights to your box, which I didn't have because I was borrowing the box.

I eventually connected to the MBean server with MC4J.

I think that the decision to not include JConsole with the JRE is crazy. JMX is a fantastic infrastructure for building applications that are easier to monitor and manage, but not including JConsole in consumer JREs is just a barrier to entry that prevents JMX from getting the mainstream usage that it deserves. Just think of the possibilities if JConsole was included with the JRE, particularly if you were writing Java desktop applications within a corporate environment - a user is having problems, walk over to their desk, boot-up JConsole, dig around, modify the logging level, etc. Sun, I think you've missed an opportunity here.

Responses[6]

Posted by Simon Brown on 06 August 2007 20:45:00 BST #