GenericJMX 🔗

The Splunk Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector uses the Smart Agent receiver with the genericjmx monitor to expose metrics on Java Management Extensions (JMX), a generic framework to provide and query management information. The interface is used by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to provide information about the memory used and threads. For a more flexible alternative, use the JMX monitor.

Note

To monitor JMX with the OpenTelemetry Collector using native OpenTelemetry components refer to the JMX receiver.

This integration is only available on Kubernetes and Linux.

Benefits 🔗

After you configure the integration, you can access these features:

View metrics. You can create your own custom dashboards, and most monitors provide built-in dashboards as well. For information about dashboards, see View dashboards in Splunk Observability Cloud.
View a data-driven visualization of the physical servers, virtual machines, AWS instances, and other resources in your environment that are visible to Infrastructure Monitoring. For information about navigators, see Use navigators in Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring.
Access the Metric Finder and search for metrics sent by the monitor. For information, see Search the Metric Finder and Metadata Catalog.

Installation 🔗

Follow these steps to deploy this integration:

Deploy the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector to your host or container platform:
- Install on Kubernetes
- Install on Linux
Configure the monitor, as described in the Configuration section.
Restart the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector.

Configuration 🔗

To use this integration of a Smart Agent monitor with the Collector:

Include the Smart Agent receiver in your configuration file.
Add the monitor type to the Collector configuration, both in the receiver and pipelines sections.

See how to Use Smart Agent monitors with the Collector.
See how to set up the Smart Agent receiver.
For a list of common configuration options, refer to Common configuration settings for monitors.
Learn more about the Collector at Get started: Understand and use the Collector.

Example 🔗

To activate this integration, add the following to your Collector configuration:

receivers:
  smartagent/genericjmx:
    type: collectd/genericjmx
    ...  # Additional config

Next, add the monitor to the service.pipelines.metrics.receivers section of your configuration file:

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [smartagent/genericjmx]

Advanced configuration example 🔗

See the following example:

receivers:
  smartagent/genericjmx:
    type: collectd/genericjmx
    host: my-java-app
    port: 7099
    mBeanDefinitions:
      threading:
        objectName: java.lang:type=Threading
        values:
          - type: gauge
            table: false
            instancePrefix: jvm.threads.count
            attribute: ThreadCount

Configuration settings 🔗

The following table shows the configuration options for this monitor:

Option	Required	Type	Description
`host`	yes	`string`	The host to connect to. JMX must be configured for remote access and accessible from the agent.
`port`	yes	`integer`	JMX connection port (not the RMI port) on the application. This corresponds to the `com.sun.management.jmxremote.port` Java property that should be set on the JVM when running the application.
`name`	no	`string`
`serviceName`	no	`string`	This is how the service type is identified in the Splunk Splunk Observability Cloud UI so that you can get built-in content.
`serviceURL`	no	`string`	The JMX connection string. This is rendered as a Go template and has access to the other values in this config. Note: Do not set this string directly; setting the host and port as specified above is preferred. The default value is `service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/rmi://{{.Host}}:{{.Port}}/jmxrmi`.
`instancePrefix`	no	`string`	Prefixes the generated plugin instance with prefix. If a second `instancePrefix` is specified in a referenced MBean block, the prefix specified in the Connection block will appear at the beginning of the plugin instance, and the prefix specified in the MBean block will be appended to it.
`username`	no	`string`	Username to authenticate to the server
`password`	no	`string`	User password to authenticate to the server
`customDimensions`	no	`map of strings`	Takes in key-value pairs of custom dimensions at the connection level.
`mBeansToCollect`	no	`list of strings`	A list of the MBeans defined in `mBeanDefinitions` to actually collect. If not provided, then all defined MBeans will be collected.
`mBeansToOmit`	no	`list of strings`	A list of the MBeans to omit. This is useful when only a few MBeans need to be omitted from the default list.
`mBeanDefinitions`	no	`map of objects` (see the following table)	Specifies how to map JMX MBean values to metrics. Specific service monitors such as Cassandra, Kafka, or ActiveMQ are pre-loaded with a set of mappings, and any that you add in this option will be merged with those. To learn more, see the Collectd documentation .

The nested mBeanDefinitions configuration object has the following fields:

Option	Required	Type	Description
`objectName`	no	`string`	Sets the pattern which is used to retrieve MBeans from the MBeanServer. If more than one MBean is returned, you should use the `instanceFrom` option to make the identifiers unique.
`instancePrefix`	no	`string`	Prefixes the generated plugin instance with prefix.
`instanceFrom`	no	`list of strings`	The object names used by JMX to identify MBeans include “properties”, which are basically key-value pairs. If the given object name is not unique and multiple MBeans are returned, the values of those properties usually differ. You can use this option to build the plugin instance from the appropriate property values. This is optional and can be repeated to generate the plugin instance from multiple property values.
`values`	no	`list of objects` (see the following table)	The `value` blocks map one or more attributes of an MBean to a value list. There must be at least one `value` block within each MBean block.
`dimensions`	no	`list of strings`

The nested values configuration object has the following fields:

Option	Required	Type	Description
`type`	no	`string`	Sets the data set being used to handle the values of the MBean attribute.
`table`	no	`bool`	Set to `true` if the returned attribute is a composite type. If set to `true`, the keys within the composite type are appended to the type instance. The default value is `false`.
`instancePrefix`	no	`string`	Works like the option of the same name directly beneath the MBean block, but sets the type instance instead.
`instanceFrom`	no	`list of strings`	Works like the option of the same name directly beneath the MBean block, but sets the type instance instead.
`attribute`	no	`string`	Sets the name of the attribute from which to read the value. You can access the keys of composite types by using a dot to concatenate the key name to the attribute name. For example, “attrib0.key42”. If `table` is set to `true`, path must point to a composite type, otherwise it must point to a numeric type.
`attributes`	no	`list of strings`	The plural form of the `attribute` config above. Used to derive multiple metrics from a single MBean.

Metrics 🔗

Notes 🔗

To learn more about the available in Splunk Observability Cloud see Metric types
In host-based subscription plans, default metrics are those metrics included in host-based subscriptions in Splunk Observability Cloud, such as host, container, or bundled metrics. Custom metrics are not provided by default and might be subject to charges. See Metric categories for more information.
In MTS-based subscription plans, all metrics are custom.
To add additional metrics, see how to configure extraMetrics in Add additional metrics

Troubleshooting 🔗

If you are a Splunk Observability Cloud customer and are not able to see your data in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can get help in the following ways.

Available to Splunk Observability Cloud customers

Submit a case in the Splunk Support Portal .
Contact Splunk Support .

Available to prospective customers and free trial users

Ask a question and get answers through community support at Splunk Answers .
Join the Splunk #observability user group Slack channel to communicate with customers, partners, and Splunk employees worldwide. To join, see Chat groups in the Get Started with Splunk Community manual.

Exposed ports 🔗

The following Java properties show how to expose JMX ports to inbound connections. For more information, see Monitoring and Management Using JMX Technology in the Java documentation.

java \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=5000 \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.rmi.port=5000 \
  ...

This works as long as the agent is allowed to access port 5000 on the Java app host. Note that this does not turn on authentication or encryption, but these can be added.

The following error messages assume the host config is set to 172.17.0.3 and the port set to 5000. Your host config and port settings might be different. The following sections show errors you might receive and their meanings:

Connection Refused 🔗

java \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=5000 \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false \
  -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.rmi.port=5000 \
  ...

This error indicates that the JMX connect port is not open on the specified host. Confirm, using netstat/ss or some other tool, that this port is indeed open on the configured host and is listening on an appropriate address. If the agent is running on a remote server, JMX might not be listening on localhost only.

RMI Connection Issues 🔗

Creating MBean server connection failed: java.rmi.ConnectException: Connection refused to host: 172.17.0.3; nested exception is:
     java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out (Connection timed out)

This indicates that the JMX connect port was reached successfully, but the RMI port that it was directed to is being blocked, probably by a firewall. Make sure the com.sun.management.jmxremote.rmi.port property in your Java app is set to the same port as the JMX connect port. There might be other variations of the error message that say Connection reset or Connection refused which indicate a similar cause.

This page was last updated on Feb 11, 2025.

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