Can I connect to a jsadebugd process on a remote machine from Eclipse/IDE debugger?

Question

I have a java process running on a Linux box, but it cannot be started/re-started in debug mode. I read about the jsadebugd command and started the daemon, but I want to connect to it from an IDE(possibly Eclipse) debugger or maybe YourKit or jconsole. How can I do this? The remote JVM is 1.6+.

Answer 1

I am not sure if I understand your restrictions correctly but you can start JVM with debugging server (serving JDWP) enabled. See for example "Sun VM Invocation Options" in http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/jpda/conninv.html

Then you can connect your Eclipse debugger to running JVM. See "Remote debugging" section here http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-ecbug/

Answer 2

I'm not sure that this is exposed by Eclipse, but here's how to do it with jdb:

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/trouble/TSG-VM/html/tooldescr.html#gbmog

Answer 3

I assume since you mentioned Yourkit and other tool that what you really want to do is look at object state inside your applications. There are a couple of options, though I don't think it gets you the ability to set break-points like Eclipse or another debugger would (though I'd be intersted in hearing what restricts you from starting the process in debug mode - technical? process?)

1. have you tried connecting with: VisualVM? I don't believe you need to start in debug mode, and it will give you the ability to navigate the object graph, and inspect objects. You can even use it to take heapdumps and do some ad-hoc analysis through them using OQL queries.

2. If you're running on JDK6+ - have you tried instrumenting with btrace? Some notes from the sailfin team sounded promising, and like DTrace in Solaris, this seem like it would be useful in a variety of situations.