Docs » Supported integrations in Splunk Observability Cloud » Configure application receivers for languages » GenericJMX

GenericJMX πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

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

Installation πŸ”—

Follow these steps to deploy this integration:

  1. Deploy the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector to your host or container platform:

  2. Configure the monitor, as described in the Configuration section.

  3. Restart the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector.

Configuration πŸ”—

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

  1. Include the Smart Agent receiver in your configuration file.

  2. Add the monitor type to the Collector configuration, both in the receiver and pipelines sections.

Example πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

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

β€œproperties”, 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, β€œattrib0.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 πŸ”—

Notes πŸ”—

  • 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 πŸ”—

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

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 πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

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 πŸ”—

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 Sep 18, 2024.