Calling JMX MBean method from a shell script

Question

Are there any libraries that would allow me to call a JMX MBean method from a shell script. We expose some operations/admin commands through JMX, and we could have our admins use JConsole, or VisualVM, but some tasks are better left to automation. In that automation we'd like to be able to call a JMX MBean method on our running server, preferably from a shell script.

Answer 1

I'm not sure about bash-like environment. You might try some simple wrapper programs in Java (with program arguments) that invoke your MBeans on the remote server. You can then call these wrappers from the shell script

If you can use something like Python or Perl, you might be interested in JSR-262 which allows you to expose JMX operations over web services. This is scheduled to be included in Java 7 but you might be able to use a release candidate of the reference implementation

Answer 2

Take a look at JManage. It's able to execute MBean methods and get / set attributes from command line.

Answer 3

The following command line JMX utilities are available:

1. jmxterm - seems to be the most fully featured utility.
2. cmdline-jmxclient - used in the WebArchive project seems very bare bones (and no development since 2006 it looks like)
3. Grovy script and JMX - provides some really powerful JMX functionality but requires groovy and other library setup.
4. JManage command line functionality - (downside is that it requires a running JManage server to proxy commands through)

Groovy JMX Example:

import java.lang.management.*
import javax.management.ObjectName
import javax.management.remote.JMXConnectorFactory as JmxFactory
import javax.management.remote.JMXServiceURL as JmxUrl
import groovy.swing.SwingBuilder
import javax.swing.WindowConstants as WC

def serverUrl = 'service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/rmi://localhost:9003/jmxrmi'
String beanName = "com.webwars.gameplatform.data:type=udmdataloadsystem,id=0"
def server = JmxFactory.connect(new JmxUrl(serverUrl)).MBeanServerConnection
def dataSystem = new GroovyMBean(server, beanName)

println "Connected to:\n$dataSystem\n"

println "Executing jmxForceRefresh()"
dataSystem.jmxForceRefresh();

cmdline-jmxclient example:

If you have an

• MBean: com.company.data:type=datasystem,id=0

With an Operation called:

• jmxForceRefresh()

Then you can write a simple bash script (assuming you download cmdline-jmxclient-0.10.3.jar and put in the same directory as your script):

#!/bin/bash

cmdLineJMXJar=./cmdline-jmxclient-0.10.3.jar
user=yourUser
password=yourPassword
jmxHost=localhost
port=9003

#No User and password so pass '-'
echo "Available Operations for com.company.data:type=datasystem,id=0"
java -jar ${cmdLineJMXJar} ${user}:${password} ${jmxHost}:${port} com.company.data:type=datasystem,id=0

echo "Executing XML update..."
java -jar ${cmdLineJMXJar} - ${jmxHost}:${port} com.company.data:type=datasystem,id=0 jmxForceRefresh

Answer 4

You might want also to have a look at jmx4perl. It provides java-less access to a remote JEE Server's MBeans. However, a small agent servlet needs to be installed on the target platform, which provides a restful JMX Access via HTTP with a JSON payload. (Version 0.50 will add an agentless mode by implementing a JSR-160 proxy).

Advantages are quick startup times compared to launching a local java JVM and ease of use. jmx4perl comes with a full set of Perl modules which can be easily used in your own scripts:

use JMX::Jmx4Perl;
use JMX::Jmx4Perl::Alias;   # Import certains aliases for MBeans

print "Memory Used: ",
      JMX::Jmx4Perl
          ->new(url => "http://localhost:8080/j4p")
          ->get_attribute(MEMORY_HEAP_USED);

You can also use alias for common MBean/Attribute/Operation combos (e.g. for most MXBeans). For additional features (Nagios-Plugin, XPath-like access to complex attribute types, ...), please refer to the documentation of jmx4perl.