Hawkular - Monitoring JVM applications with jmxtrans

The setup in details

Hawkular Metrics and PTrans

Hawkular Metrics standalone installation is documented on the Hawkular website. ptrans setup is documented on the same page.

Tomcat 8

JMX remote access must be enabled otherwise jmxtrans can’t connect. To do this, create (or modify) the setenv.sh script in the bin directory.

setenv.sh

#!/bin/bash

CATALINA_OPTS="-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=35135"

jmxtrans

Download the latest jmxtrans distribution. Expand it somewhere on your disk.

In the bin directory, create a jmxtrans.conf file. It will be sourced by the jmxtrans.sh script.

jmxtrans.conf

#!/bin/bash

JAR_FILE="/path/to/jmx-trans/lib/jmxtrans-all.jar" (1)
LOG_DIR="/path/to/jmx-trans/bin" (2)
LOG_FILE="/path/to/jmx-trans/bin/jmxtrans.out" (3)
SECONDS_BETWEEN_RUNS=5 (4)

1	Where the script will find the jmxtrans fat JAR
2	The directory where log files should be written
3	The file where the process output will be redirected
4	Instructs jmxtrans to collect metrics and send data every 5 seconds

Then create the main configuration file, config.json. The jmxtrans wiki has a detailed reference.

config.json

{
  "servers": [
    {
      "numQueryThreads": "2",
      "host": "localhost", (1)
      "port": "35135", (2)
      "queries": [ (3)
        {
          "outputWriters": [ (4)
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter" (5)
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter", (6)
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1", (7)
                "port": "2003" (8)
              }
            }
          ],
          "obj": "java.lang:type=OperatingSystem", (9)
          "attr": [ (10)
            "SystemLoadAverage",
            "AvailableProcessors",
            "TotalPhysicalMemorySize",
            "FreePhysicalMemorySize",
            "TotalSwapSpaceSize",
            "FreeSwapSpaceSize",
            "OpenFileDescriptorCount",
            "MaxFileDescriptorCount"
          ]
        },
        {
          "outputWriters": [
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter"
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter",
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1",
                "port": "2003"
              }
            }
          ],
          "resultAlias": "heap",
          "obj": "java.lang:type=Memory",
          "attr": [
            "HeapMemoryUsage",
            "NonHeapMemoryUsage"
          ]
        },
        {
          "outputWriters": [
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter"
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter",
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1",
                "port": "2003"
              }
            }
          ],
          "resultAlias": "cmsoldgen",
          "obj": "java.lang:name=CMS Old Gen,type=MemoryPool",
          "attr": [
            "Usage"
          ]
        },
        {
          "outputWriters": [
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter"
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter",
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1",
                "port": "2003"
              }
            }
          ],
          "resultAlias": "gc",
          "obj": "java.lang:type=GarbageCollector,name=*",
          "attr": [
            "CollectionCount",
            "CollectionTime"
          ]
        },
        {
          "outputWriters": [
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter",
              "settings": {}
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter",
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1",
                "port": "2003"
              }
            }
          ],
          "resultAlias": "memorypool",
          "obj": "java.lang:type=MemoryPool,name=*",
          "attr": [
            "Usage"
          ]
        },
        {
          "outputWriters": [
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter"
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter",
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1",
                "port": "2003"
              }
            }
          ],
          "resultAlias": "threads",
          "obj": "java.lang:type=Threading",
          "attr": [
            "DaemonThreadCount",
            "PeakThreadCount",
            "ThreadCount",
            "TotalStartedThreadCount"
          ]
        },
        {
          "outputWriters": [
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter"
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter",
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1",
                "port": "2003"
              }
            }
          ],
          "resultAlias": "tomcat8-connectors",
          "obj": "Catalina:type=ThreadPool,name=*",
          "attr": [
            "currentThreadCount",
            "currentThreadsBusy"
          ]
        },
        {
          "outputWriters": [
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.StdOutWriter"
            },
            {
              "@class": "com.googlecode.jmxtrans.model.output.GraphiteWriter",
              "settings": {
                "host": "127.0.0.1",
                "port": "2003"
              }
            }
          ],
          "resultAlias": "tomcat8-requests",
          "obj": "Catalina:type=GlobalRequestProcessor,name=*",
          "attr": [
            "bytesReceived",
            "bytesSent",
            "errorCount",
            "processingTime",
            "requestCount"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

1	name of the host where Tomcat is running
2	jmx remoting port (must match the value set in `setenv.sh` in Tomcat installation)
3	queries item lists the MBeans which should be invoked
4	output writers item indicates where data collected should be sent
5	StdOutWriter simply prints collected data to the process output stream (useful for configuration debugging)
6	GraphiteWriter sends data to a remote server which understands the Graphite protocols; by default, the text protocol is used
7	graphite remote host (must match the value set in `ptrans.conf`)
8	graphite remote port (must match the value set in `ptrans.conf`)
9	name of the MBean to invoke
10	list of attributes to collect

Eventually, start jmxtrans.

Starting jmxtrans

./jmxtrans.sh start config.json

That’s it!