how to change the name of a Java application process?

Question

when executing a Java application the process name given to it is usually java.exe or javaw.exe. But how can I make it be called by the name of my application?

Answer 1

Check out launch4j, it is an executable wrapper that allows you to assign executable names.

Answer 2

Unless you launch Java via JNI in your own custom built executable, the process name will always be java.exe.

There are several java launchers/wrappers that can generate this executable for you.

• Launch4j, looks to be the most recent and up to date
• JSmooth
• install4J, commercial, more than you need

Answer 3

If you're using the Sun JDK, you can also use the "jps" command line tool to get a detailed list of Java processes running on the box.

Answer 4

If you are launching from a shell sript (at least for bash and possibly for other decent shells) you can use:

exec -a goodname java ...

to launch java and pass "goodname" as the 0th argument, which will be shown as the process name in ps etc.

Answer 5

Assuming that what you are really after is a way to terminate the correct the correct process later on, then an alternative solution is this:

Run ps-ef and you should get a listing that looks something like this:

mruser 7518 7505 4 11:37 pts/3 00:00:00 /usr/lib/jvm/sun-jre-bin-1.5/bin/java -classpath MRD3030_Linked.jar peralex.MyApp

Then "pkill -f peralex.MyApp"

will kill the correct process.

Answer 6

Not all flavors of exec support the -a flag. If yours doesn't, the argv0 program does something similar.