MaxPermSize ignored Tomcat 7

Question

I'm trying to run several tools on a Windows Tomcat server . The server starts fine, and I can also see the manager page of Tomcat. But when I open a tool, an "OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space" occurs. I tried a lot with setting the MaxPermSize in my catalina.bat, this is my CATALINA_OPTS:

set CATALINA_OPTS="-Djava.awt.headless=true -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -server -Xms64m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -XX:+CMSPermGenSweepingEnabled"

When I run JVisualVM next to my Tomcat server, I can see that the arguments are picked up well:

But when I go to the monitor tab and check the PermGen, the max is 67mb instead of the 512 that I set my CATALINA_OPTS. So the arguments are set, but Tomcat ignores them..

I tried fixing this problem for a couple of hours already, but without success..

Anyone?

Answer 1

Remove the "" in the set and you are fine... Don't know why, yet. But that's the answer

set CATALINA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -server -Xms64m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -XX:+CMSPermGenSweepingEnabled

-- edit

Btw, I think you want the UseConcMarkSweepGC as well, otherwise the other 2 CMS parameters won't do a thing (and one of the 2 is only needed, depening on the version of the JVM)

See What does JVM flag CMSClassUnloadingEnabled actually do?

-- edit 2

This question was also asked for tomcat6 here: https://serverfault.com/questions/64894/setting-catalina-opts-for-tomcat6-on-windows-doesnt-work

Too bad the blogger doesn't explain why you don't need to use quotes in windows.

http://javahowto.blogspot.nl/2006/06/6-common-errors-in-setting-java-heap.html

But I think it's because with the quotes it's seen as one big argument. The only thing that I don't understand is why the jvisualvm pretends you set it correctly. But I guess the display of the arguments doesn't actually look at how it's set in the JVM, but only formats the arguments nicely.