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Profiling tomcat application with VisualVM

I am trying to run visualvm under the username tomcat6 because apparently visualvm can only find applications running under its username. So by default it is only finding applications running under my username. I have been able to connect visualvm with tomcat6 through jmx but that lacks the fine granularity of instrumented profiling.
I tried the following to run visualvm under the username tomcat6 but got the following error that I don't understand.
$ sudo -u tomcat6 jvisualvm
No protocol specified
Exception in thread "main" java.awt.AWTError: Can't connect to X11 window server using ':0' as the value of the DISPLAY variable.
at sun.awt.X11GraphicsEnvironment.initDisplay(Native Method)
at sun.awt.X11GraphicsEnvironment.access$200(X11GraphicsEnvironment.java:65)
at sun.awt.X11GraphicsEnvironment$1.run(X11GraphicsEnvironment.java:115)
...

If the computer running your application is remote -- like a server -- then you can't run GUI applications without some work. It's probably going to be easier to enable remote access to VisualVM.
You can use two techniques to attach to a remote JVM: using jstatd or using JMX. I'm not sure what you think you are losing by using JMX, but evidently jstatd doesn't give you access to profiling tools, CPU monitor, etc.).
You need to configure your JVM and Tomcat to allow for remote access. That requires 3 steps:
Enable remote JMX. Turns out, there's a guide for that.
Fix the "wandering port" used for RMI. There's a guide for that, too.
(Optional) Arrange for secure remote-access to the server. The easiest way to do that would be to use ssh -Lport:localhost:port with a series of -L arguments to forward multiple ports from your workstation to your server. Map all the ports you had to configure in steps #1 and #2. If you don't do this, you'll need to have non-firewalled access to all the aforementioned ports.
Restart your JVM and connect with JVisualVM.
Update 2022-06-01
Note that the "wandering port" problem has been fixed at the JVM level, so there is no need for application (i.e. Tomcat) support for that. Item #1 for Tomcat 8.5 and later contains updated instructions making item #2 unnecessary with a recent JVM.

Unfortunately only sampling is available in remote mode so JMX will lack instrumentation tools.
Actually your approach to running visualvm under tomcat6 user is correct. You should take a look at this question on how to run X11 applications under sudo.
The easiest way to pass DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY environment variables is to use sudo -E command to preserve current user environment.
Also if you can't see your process under tomcat6 user you should check if CATALINA_TMPDIR is pointing to /tmp. Otherwise you should pass it to visualvm
jvisualvm -J-Djava.io.tmpdir="${CATALINA_TMPDIR}"
Actually there is a lot of alternatives like yourkit or jprofiler shipped with java agents which allows remote instrumentation profiling.

The easiest is to open a remote JXM port on Tomcat in order to be able to remotely (from your desktop computer) connect to your remote Tomcat (on your server) with jvisualvm.
You need to pass the following system properties to your JVM :
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=<whatever_port_you_want>
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
Then open jvisualvm on your local computer (JVM version needs to be the same or newer), File -> Add Remote Host -> Enter the name on the Host. It will create an entry for this host. Right lick on this Entry -> Add JMX connection -> Enter the port -> OK
jvisualvm will then be able to access remotely to your application.
You can also secure the connection if needed by using the following system properties (you need to create the files and locate them where you want :
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.password.file=jmxremote.password
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.access.file=jmxremote.access
These properties needs to be added to the CATALINA_OPTS environment variable. Fr exemple :
export CATALINA_OPTS = "$CATALINA_OPTS -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8888 "
More info on JMX lies here : https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/management/agent.html

I tried to do something similar but I was not allowed to install JVisualVM on the server. Having JVisualVM connect to the remote machine never seemed to work correctly. I suspect firewall rules were blocking part of the the network connections.
The only way I found to remotely profile the server was via an ssh tunnel.
Set the JMX port in CATALINA_OPTS on the server
CATALINA_OPTS="$CATALINA_OPTS -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=13333 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false; export CATALINA_OPTS
On your desktop machine open an ssh connection to the server
ssh -D 61444 username#tomcat.server.address
Add a flag to JVisualVM so that it will proxy its network connection
"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_79\bin\jvisualvm.exe" -J-Dnetbeans.system_socks_proxy=localhost:61444 -J-Djava.net.useSystemProxies=true
Have JVisualVM connect to the jmxport and the network traffic is tunneled via ssh.
Good luck.

How to debug a jar remotely from netbeans

I'm trying to figure out how to debug my jar that is running remotely. Here is my scenario:
My .jar will be running from a VPS. This jar basically runs a server
for a game, so it also connects to a mysql db. I start the server with 3 .bat files that looks something like this:
set CLASSPATH=.;dist\aries.jar;dist\mina-core.jar;dist\slf4j-api.jar;dist\slf4j-jdk14.jar;dist\mysql-connector-java-bin.jar
java -Xmx500m -Dwzpath=wz\ -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=filename.keystore -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword=passwd -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=filename.keystore -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=passwd net.world.WorldServer
pause
What I want to do is start the server on the vps like normal, but debugging the server on my local machine via Netbeans IDE. I don't know if this is possible because people will be connecting to the server (although, I will be debugging a test server which will only have me online).
Note: I have done a lot of searching before coming here and a lot of what I found had to do with using xdebug & php which has doesn't have much to do with my situation (I don't think)
-Thanks

There's a NetBeans FAQ page about this.
In brief:
Add the remote debugging options to your Java command. For example:
-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,address=8888,suspend=n
Then, use the attach debugger option in NetBeans and select your server and the port you used above (8888). It's pretty much that easy.
You may want to think about network and firewall considerations, as you may have noticed there are no passwords involved, so anyone who can connect to the port can debug your app. This could be a big security risk. Your VPS provider probably has some tools to help with setting up a secure, private connection.

Analyze stand alone Java Application locally for threads

Respected Experts,
I have a stand alone java application and want to monitor the threads created by it. I am planning to use a tool like JConsole or JVisualVM. However, I am not able to connect these tools locally to my Java Application.
I am using Windows machine. JConsole and Java program are running locally. I have tried to run Java application with following JMV arguments with no success:
java -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9999 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false LinkedListTest
When I try to connect using JConsole, my process id is greyed and following message appears:
Note: The management agent is not enabled on this process
I think I should be able to connect JConsole to a stand alone java application. Any thoughts what I am missing here
Thanks and Regards

Thanks for the inputs. I was able to solve the problem and the details are as follows:
As #Holger mentioned, both JConsole and JVisualVM can connect to the local Java Application running without any JMX arguments. The problem that I was facing was machine specific. I restarted the machine and deleted the following directory:
%TMP%\hsperfdata_User.Name
(I was not able to delete this directory without doing a restart)
Restarted JConsole/JVisualVM and was able to connect to local java processes using the process id.
In fact, the use of JVisualVM pointed me towards this fix. On start of JVisualVM, I got an error message stating something like local processes/applications can't be monitored. The message had a link to Troubleshooting guide. I am reproducing the relevant snippet:
Local Applications Cannot Be Monitored (Error Dialog On Startup)
Description: An error dialog saying that local applications cannot be monitored is shown >immediately after VisualVM startup. Locally running Java applications are displayed as Application> (pid ###).
Resolution: This can happen on Windows systems if the username contains capitalized letters. In >this case, username is UserName but the jvmstat directory created by JDK is >%TMP%\hsperfdata_username. To workaround the problem, exit all Java applications, delete the >%TMP%\hsperfdata_username directory and create new %TMP%\hsperfdata_UserName directory.
However, on my machine directory had the following format:
%TMP%\hsperfdata_User.Name
So, my recommendations are:
-check the name of the above mentioned directory for presence of camel case user name
-If not, follow the steps from the Trouble Shooting guide
-If the problem persists, delete the directory (may require machine reboot, as in my case)
-Restart JConsole/JVisualVM
Hopefully, the problem would be resolved.
Thanks and Regards

How to remotely profile a web application with JProfiler?

I am running a web application that is deployed on remote machine server and I have the IP address and URL of this application. When I hit the URL with a browser, the application displays.
I now have to profile that web application, as I need to find out why it is running so slow.
I tried using JProfiler, have not been successful. Could someone please advise how to configure JProfiler for remote profiling?

The easiest way to profile a remote JVM on a system without a GUI is this:
Extract the JProfiler archive (not the installer) somewhere on the remote machine
In the installation directory call bin/jpenable and select the JVM you want to profile
On your local machine start JProfiler and create a new session of type "Attach to profiled JVM (local or remote)"
In the session configuration, enter the host name and the port as given by jpenable
Start the session and profile
Tip: To find a bottleneck, use sampling not instrumentation.
Update for JProfiler 10.0+
Since JProfiler 10.0, there is a remote attach feature that does not require any of the above steps, you just need SSH credentials to the remote machine.
SSH connections are made directly by JProfiler, you don't have to set up the SSH tunnel yourself. It's also possible to configure multi-hop tunnels.
JProfiler will automatically download the required agent package, upload it to the remote machine and use its command line tools to gather the information that you see in the attach dialog. The agent package is cached, so this is only done once.
Because you have to authenticate as the same user that has started the JVM that you want to profile, it is possible to switch the user for the remote attach. For example, you can sudo to the root user to attach to a service that was started as root.
All the JVMs started by the selected user are shown and you can either start a full profiling session or just take a low-overhead HPROF heap dump and open it in JProfiler.

Using the Netbeans 6.5 profiler to profile a remote web app?

I'm having trouble using the Netbeans 6.5 profiler to profile the memory usage of a java web app, remotely.
I have followed the steps in the tutorial, and was able to customize a Tomcat instance to start with the profiling agents. I can also attach the Netbeans profiler to the running server: for some seconds, the profiler shows graphs with the memory usage of the server.
However, I am not able to run my deployed web app. After a few seconds, the server is shut down gracefully as if it simply had reached the bottom of its method main (hardly the expected behavior of a web server).
During these seconds, the server is not responsible, and I can't connect to a web application in it, they are simply not deployed.
I do not want to import my app into a new Netbeans project just for profiling it. It's possible to profile a remote app without access to its source, right ? After all, for a few seconds, the server was running and being profiled.
I want to profile a web application in Netbeans 6.5. What did I forget ?

You can use VisualVM tool as well. Follow the below mentioned steps.
1) Run jstatd ( jstat demon process) ( Run on your remote machine where application is running)
jstatd -p 1098 -J-Djava.security.policy=tools.policy ( specify unused port ) if tools.policy file is not specified create it as follows.
tools.policy
grant codebase "file:${java.home}/../lib/tools.jar" {
permission java.security.AllPermission;
};
2) Also specify the following properties before you start your JVM.
#JMX property
JVM_ARGS="${JVM_ARGS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true"
JVM_ARGS="${JVM_ARGS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=10992"
JVM_ARGS="${JVM_ARGS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false"
JVM_ARGS="${JVM_ARGS} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false"
3) Start the visual VM on local machine.
a. Under remote tab add remote node.
b. Wait for couple of minutes you will see all the core applications instance will be seen under remote tab.
c. Click on remote node then select Add JMX connections specify node:port (port mentioned above in point 2.)
d. Wait for few seconds you will see JMX connection under remote node.
4) After few seconds you will see new tab appearing under remote node. Double click on the remote_node:10992 you will see the profile table on right hand side.
You can see memory , cpu , thread etc details ..

Are profiling the entire webserver or did you use the profiling filter to profile only your package?
Reducing the interaction between the profiler and the app server itself can solve it.

Check your jvm version. The version used by netbeans should be same as that in tomcat.
Use default ports. If you have changed any ports ensure they are above 1024.
Try to profile the example application in tomcat (remove all other applications). If it is running sucessfully it means there is a memory constraint.
Profiling requires huge memory. use -xms1024m -xmx1024m for tomcat.
If every thing else fail. think of switching to jdk6 and tomcat 6.
After many trials I discoverd that there are lot of limitations in jdk5 and tomcat5. switching to tomcat6 and jdk6 solved the problem for me.
Profiling with netbeans does not work jrockit, ibm jdk etc..
--kiran.kumar