connecting-visual-vm-to-tomcat-7-notes.md

Connecting Visual VM to Tomcat 7

Adapted from Mark Shead's blog.

1. Login to remote host with SSH:

   local $ ssh remote`

2. Find out exact Tomcat version, e.g.

   remote $ yum info tomcat7.noarch
   # ...
   Installed Packages
   Name        : tomcat7
   Arch        : noarch
   Version     : 7.0.67

3. Fetch JxmRemoteLifecycleListener implementation for that specific Tomcat version:

   remote $ curl http://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-7/v7.0.67/bin/extras/catalina-jmx-remote.jar -o ~/catalina-jmx-remote.jar
   remote $ mkdir -p /tomcat-install-path/lib
   remote $ sudo mv ~/catalina-jmx-remote.jar /tomcat-install-path/lib/

4. Add listener for JmxRemoteLifecycleListener to Tomcat config:

remote $ sudo cp /tomcat-install-path/conf/server.xml{,.org}
remote $ sudo $EDITOR /tomcat-install-path/config/server.xml

Add the following line inside <Server> element:

<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.JmxRemoteLifecycleListener" rmiRegistryPortPlatform="9090" rmiServerPortPlatform="9091" />

5. Add JMX options to $JAVA_HOME:

remote $ sudo cp /etc/init.d/tomcat-service{,.org}`
remote $ sudo $EDITOR /etc/init.d/tomcat-service`

Add the following line:

JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.local.only=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=localhost"

6. Restart Tomcat:

remote $ sudo service tomcat-service restart

7. Check that JVM listens to ports 9090 and 9091:

remote $ sudo lsof -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN -P | grep java
# ...
java      2522 tomcat   52u  IPv6 46072171      0t0  TCP *:9090 (LISTEN)
java      2522 tomcat   53u  IPv6 46072172      0t0  TCP *:9091 (LISTEN)

8. In local host, setup SSH port forwarding to remote host:

local $ ssh -L 9090:localhost:9090 -L 9091:localhost:9091 remote

9. Test connection from local to remote:

local $ nc -v -w 10 localhost 9090
# ...
Connection to localhost port 9090 [tcp/websm] succeeded!

10. Open Visual VM, open remote connection to localhost:9090