How To Monitor And Manage Apache Tomcat

How To Monitor And Manage Apache Tomcat

This guide provides an overview on how to monitor and manage
Apache Tomcat application server. The guide is divided into following steps:

  1. Adding Apache Tomcat to the list of monitored applications.
  2. Configuring availability sensors and performance counters
    for Apache Tomcat.

  3. Tomcat plugin overview.
  4. Setting up alarms and notification policies.

Tools used in this guide:

  • Apache Tomcat: http://tomcat.apache.org/
  • Free monitoring tool (Verax NMS express): http://www.veraxsystems.com/en/products/nms

 

Adding Apache Tomcat To
Device Inventory

In order to include Apache Tomcat to be monitored by Verax
NMS, add an application instance to the device actually running this
instance.

Note:
The system
allows for creating multiple instances for applications
of the same type on a single device.

In order to add an Apache Tomcat to the device running its
instance,
perform the following steps:

  1. Log in into the Verax NMS and select Home from the mainmenu.
  2. Select a device running the Apache Tomcat instance from the
    left-side aspects view.

Aspect tree

  1. In Summary tab select Manage applications from the actions
    section.

add

  1. A pop-up dialog is displayed.

3

  1. Select Add application option from the context menu and
    click Go. A dialog window is displayed. 

4

  1. Choose Apache Tomcat from Application types.

Systems will ask to enter the following application-specific
parameters:
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  • Instance name – You can
    enter any name describing the monitored application instance.

  • Host – In most cases, the host address is an IP
    address of the
    device the application instance is assigned to.

  • Port – Port of application server.
  • User – Username used to connect to Apache Tomcat.
  • Password – Password used to connect to Apache Tomcat.
  • JMX Connection – Set jmx connection url
  • JMX User
  • JMX Password

Note:
application-specific parameters depend on the selected
application type.

  1. Provide the necessary information and click Save changes.
  2. The system will ask if you want to add a default set of
    sensors and counters for Apache Tomcat. In this guide
    sensors and performance will be added manually, so click No.

  3. The newly added Apache Tomcat is now visible in the
    aspect
    tree within the host’s node in Managed Applications category.

6

Apache Tomcat instance can be monitored by:

  • Obtaining information and statistics on demand using Show
    advanced view action available on Summary tab which shows several views
    with major information about server as well as performance
    characteristics.

  • Collecting performance data by configuring performance
    counter using JMX counter or predefined JMX-based counter templates.

  • Checking application or service availability by
    configuring
    JMX-based sensor.

  • Checking web application availability and measure
    user-experience by configuring HTTP sensor.

 

Adding Sensors For Apache
Tomcat

Monitoring of Tomcat features in NMS uses the JMX protocol.
This protocol should be properly configured on the Tomcat server side.
This
require the following Java parameters on server startup:
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set
CATALINA_OPTS=-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote \

-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=%my.jmx.port%
\

-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false
\

-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false

See the Tomcat documentation for
details: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/monitoring.html

Sensors are active monitors periodically querying the device
services for which they are configured and waiting for their responses.
If a
query is returned with an expected response, the queried service is
considered “available.” If a response is not received (timed out), or
if the response is not as expected, the queried service is considered
“unavailable”.

The following
types of sensors for Apache Tomcat application type are available by
default:

  • JMX Operation – Checks if given operation
    invoked
    by device JMX service returns a result for given MBean.

  • JMX Attribute – Checks if given attribute get by device
    JMX
    service returns a value for given MBean.

  • HTTP – Checks if device HTTP service gives a
    response defined in parameter “Response code” for given HTTP/HTTPS
    address and if regular expression is given if response body contains a
    string matching the expression.

In order to add a sensor, perform the following steps:

  1. Select device from the aspect tree in Home view.
  2. Select Monitors tab and switch to sensor list by clicking
    Sensor list link in the upper-right corner of the tab field. The sensor
    list is displayed.

8

  1. Select Add from the global action menu and click Go. The
    wizard dialog is displayed.

9

  1. Select the sensor you want to add and click Next.

10

  1. A dialog shows up with all sensor parameters to be
    provided. Specify the sensor parameters and click Finish.

  2. Once the sensors have been added, they are visible on the
    sensor list (Monitors tab).
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