Jconsole tab debugging

Question

Does anyone having any suggestions on how to try and debug a plugin tab for jconsole ?
I'd like to try and do this from eclipse if possible, the problem is due to having supply the jar file with jconsole instead of class files from eclipse .
any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Yup, I just did that myself. I wrote a main() method in our plugin class and connect to our JMX-enabled app. Here's a code fragment that might get you started:
-- david
private static String JMX_KEY = "com.sun.management.jmxremote.localConnectorAddress";
private static VirtualMachine findMonitorVM() throws AttachNotSupportedException, IOException {
// only local VM's supporting the attach api will respond here. This means JDK 1.6 and newer
for (VirtualMachineDescriptor vmd : VirtualMachine.list()) {
if (vmd.displayName().equals(MONITOR_CLASS)) {
return VirtualMachine.attach(vmd);
return null;
private static String agentAddress() throws Exception {
VirtualMachine vm = findMonitorVM();
if (vm == null) {
throw new RuntimeException("Saffron monitor agent not running");
String addr = vm.getAgentProperties().getProperty(JMX_KEY);
if (addr == null) {
throw new RuntimeException("Remote management agent not loaded");
vm.detach();
return addr;
private static MBeanServerConnection connect() throws Exception {
JMXServiceURL url = new JMXServiceURL(agentAddress());
JMXConnector conn = JMXConnectorFactory.connect(url);
return (conn.getMBeanServerConnection());
private static void startSwingWorker(final MonitorAgentTab agent) {
TimerTask task = new TimerTask() {
public void run() {
agent.makeEventHandler().execute();
Timer timer = new Timer("MonitorAgentTab Swing thread", true);
timer.schedule(task, 0, 2000);
public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
MonitorAgentTab agent = new MonitorAgentTab();
agent.setMBeanServerConnection(connect());
agent.startManagement();
JFrame frame = new JFrame("MonitorAgentTab");
frame.getContentPane().add(agent);
frame.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(900, 500));
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
startSwingWorker(agent);
}