How do I add a jar to jconsole classpath in windows?

Question

I'm trying to invoke a JMX MBean via Jconsole, but the method that I'm calling receive an object that needs to be on jconsole classpath in order to work.

I've tried this and the jconsole does not open (and no error is shown):

jconsole -J-Djava.class.path=%JAVA_HOME%\lib\jconsole.jar;path_to_newjar_\newjar.jar

Answer 1

Take jconsole.jar out of the -J classpath. It's already set in the jconsole launcher.

===== Update =====

Hmmm.... I take back my suggestion. I have a windows batch file I use [which works] which adds a JAR to the classpath. The intent is to add the JMXMP JMX client into jconsole and then launch to the argument specified JMX Service URL. It looks like this:

@echo off
start /B jconsole -J-Djava.class.path=%JAVA_HOME%\lib\jconsole.jar;MY-JAR-PATH\jmx-optional-1.0-b02-SNAPSHOT.jar service:jmx:jmxmp://localhost:%1

If a command like that does not work (i.e. jconsole still will not launch, but does not error out either), then you need to figure out where it is stalling. 2 suggestions for this:

1. Launch another jconsole and attach to the stalled jconsole by PID, switch to the Threads tab and eyeball what's going on in the main thread.
2. Or, (since it looks like you're in windows) hit Ctrl-Break and hopefully it will print out a thread dump to the console and you can then eyeball the main thread going-ons there.

Post back if you get anything (or if you don't....)

Answer 2

If you want to have access to both local & remote processes, the above answers are still missing a step.

From the Java 8 oracle docs:

If the JMX agent uses a connector which is not included in the Java platform, you need to add the connector classes to the class path when you run the jconsole command, as follows.

$ jconsole -J-Djava.class.path=JAVA_HOME/lib/jconsole.jar:JAVA_HOME/lib/tools.jar:connector-path

In the command above, connector-path is the directory or the Java archive (Jar) file containing the connector classes that are not included in the JDK, that are to be used by JConsole.

In your case, then, the command would be:

$ jconsole -J-Djava.class.path=%JAVA_HOME%\lib\jconsole.jar;%JAVA_HOME%/lib/tools.jar:path_to_newjar_\newjar.jar

When you leave off the JAVA_HOME/lib/tools.jar, local processes are no longer available.

Answer 3

Solution in Windows is to use quotes on your classpath, for example:

jconsole -J-Djava.class.path="%JAVA_HOME%\lib\jconsole.jar;path_to_newjar_\newjar.jar"