For those of you who want pretty lock instance visualization, but do not want to build it yourselves, I have added a slightly more elaborate version as a downloadable plug-in here:
http://hirt.se/downloads/software/jfr/se.hirt.jfr.lockinstances_0.0.1.jar

Simply download it and put it into your JROCKIT_HOME/missioncontrol/plugins folder. After restarting, you should have a tab that looks something like this:

The red bars in the range selector are, as usual, events visualized in the tab. The green bars in the range selector are GC events. As usual, if you do not like something about the GUI, feel free to use the design view to change it. The easiest way to get the design view to appear, is to press ctrl-1. This will bring up the Mission Control command console:

Enter enable then press ctrl-space to auto complete. Select enabledesignview from the list:

Then press the ‘play’ button. A new view will appear:

Close the Commands view and put the design view wherever you feel most comfortable having it. You can now, whenever you want to redesign a tab, pause that tab and enter the design mode by pressing the stop button in the design view:

One of the reactions to my recent blog on JCMD has been “But, why?”. It is a reasonable question – after all, the simple examples I added to the blog can be solved using existing tools (jps, jstack etc) in the bin folder of any recent JDK. The answer is that JCMD provides:

• A simple framework for easily adding more (self documenting) commands to the JVM.
• One launcher to learn how to use.
• The launcher is backwards and forward compatible. In other words, you can use an old version of the command to connect to a more recent version of the JVM, and vice versa.
• There are already diagnostic commands available that are not covered by the old j* tools, such as the ability to control the JMX agent and the Flight Recorder. In the future more commands will be added.
• In a future JDK update, a JMX interface will allow programmatic access to the diagnostic commands.

For a hint at what will be available in the future, check the JRCMD chapter in the JVM book.

JDK7 was quite recently released, and I thought I should mention a few new cool things in it.

JCMD

First out is the port of the small JRockit command line utility JRCMD (JRockit Command). JRCMD was a command line tool to enumerate the Java processes running on the local machine, and to send commands (referred to as “Diagnostic Commands”) to them. JRCMD has been renamed JCMD (Java Command).

To list the locally running JVMs, simply run JAVA_HOME\bin\jcmd:

C:\Java\JDKs\JDK7_u4_official\bin>.\jcmd
4636 sun.tools.jconsole.JConsole
2620 HotspotKeepAlive
1076 sun.tools.jcmd.JCmd

You will see the JVMs running on the local machine listed by PID followed by main class. To see the commands available, run the help command, like this:

C:\Java\JDKs\JDK7_u4_official\bin>.\jcmd 4636 help
4636:
The following commands are available:
VM.commercial_features
ManagementAgent.stop
ManagementAgent.start_local
ManagementAgent.start
Thread.print
GC.class_histogram
GC.heap_dump
GC.run_finalization
GC.run
VM.uptime
VM.flags
VM.system_properties
VM.command_line
VM.version
help

For more information about a specific command use ‘help <command>’.

To get information about a specific command, use the help command followed by the command name:

C:\Java\JDKs\JDK7_u4_official\bin>.\jcmd 4636 help Thread.print
4636:
Thread.print
Print all threads with stacktraces.

Impact: Medium: Depends on the number of threads.

Syntax : Thread.print [options]

Options: (options must be specified using the <key> or <key>=<value> syntax)
        -l : [optional] print java.util.concurrent locks (BOOLEAN, false)

To get a thread stack dump with the concurrent locks:

C:\Java\JDKs\JDK7_u4_official\bin>.\jcmd 4636 Thread.print -l
4636:
2012-04-27 11:21:57
Full thread dump Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (23.0-b21 mixed mode, sharing):

"DestroyJavaVM" prio=6 tid=0x003fb000 nid=0xc5c waiting on condition [0x00000000
]
   java.lang.Thread.State: RUNNABLE

   Locked ownable synchronizers:
        – None

"AWT-EventQueue-0" prio=6 tid=0x03e65800 nid=0x128c waiting on condition [0x041c
f000]
   java.lang.Thread.State: WAITING (parking)
        at sun.misc.Unsafe.park(Native Method)
        – parking to wait for  <0x2926dce8> (a java.util.concurrent.locks.Abstra
ctQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject)
        at java.util.concurrent.locks.LockSupport.park(LockSupport.java:186)
        at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject
.await(AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:2043)
        at java.awt.EventQueue.getNextEvent(EventQueue.java:511)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThre
ad.java:213)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.
java:163)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThre
ad.java:151)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:147)

        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:139)

        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:97)

   Locked ownable synchronizers:
        – None

"Thread-2" prio=6 tid=0x03e61c00 nid=0xd4c in Object.wait() [0x042bf000]
   java.lang.Thread.State: TIMED_WAITING (on object monitor)
        at java.lang.Object.wait(Native Method)
        – waiting on <0x292432b0> (a java.io.PipedInputStream)
        at java.io.PipedInputStream.read(PipedInputStream.java:327)
        – locked <0x292432b0> (a java.io.PipedInputStream)
        at java.io.PipedInputStream.read(PipedInputStream.java:378)
        – locked <0x292432b0> (a java.io.PipedInputStream)
        at sun.nio.cs.StreamDecoder.readBytes(StreamDecoder.java:283)
        at sun.nio.cs.StreamDecoder.implRead(StreamDecoder.java:325)
        at sun.nio.cs.StreamDecoder.read(StreamDecoder.java:177)
        – locked <0x29249358> (a java.io.InputStreamReader)
        at java.io.InputStreamReader.read(InputStreamReader.java:184)
        at java.io.BufferedReader.fill(BufferedReader.java:154)
        at java.io.BufferedReader.readLine(BufferedReader.java:317)
        – locked <0x29249358> (a java.io.InputStreamReader)
        at java.io.BufferedReader.readLine(BufferedReader.java:382)
        at sun.tools.jconsole.OutputViewer$PipeListener.run(OutputViewer.java:10
9)

   Locked ownable synchronizers:
        – None

.

.

.
JNI global references: 528

Java Flight Recorder

The second big feature is the first port of the JRockit Flight Recorder – a high performance event recorder built into the JVM. Think of it as the data flight recorder (black box) of an aircraft. It records information about the JVM, its environment and the application running in the JVM, so that, if something happens, clues about what caused the problem can be found. Now, the first port of the flight recorder is quite limited in terms of the events actually being recorded. It is really released to be used with the event producer built into WebLogic Server through WLDF. Also, the Mission Control client is not yet released as part of the JDK (since it is not that useful without WLDF yet). If you’re an Oracle WebLogic customer, you can download the client on MOS.

That being said, to enable the functionality in 7u4, you need to add the following command line flags to your JVM startup command:

JAVA_HOME\bin\java -XX:+UnlockCommercialFeatures -XX:+FlightRecorder <your main class and params>

You can see that it has been enabled by using JCMD. A few flight recorder specific commands should now be available:

C:\Java\JDKs\JDK7_u4_official\bin>.\jcmd 2620 help
2620:
The following commands are available:
JFR.stop
JFR.start
JFR.dump
JFR.check
VM.commercial_features
ManagementAgent.stop
ManagementAgent.start_local
ManagementAgent.start
Thread.print
GC.class_histogram
GC.heap_dump
GC.run_finalization
GC.run
VM.uptime
VM.flags
VM.system_properties
VM.command_line
VM.version
help

For more information about a specific command use ‘help <command>’.

Unless you are a WLS user, I’d personally recommend waiting a release or two before starting using the Flight Recorder. There are not that many OS/JVM/JDK level events available yet, and there is a major performance improvement related to the time stamping of events just around the corner.

On popular demand, here is how write a remote JRCMD for R28.x:

import java.lang.management.ManagementFactory;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.Map;

import javax.management.Attribute;
import javax.management.InstanceNotFoundException;
import javax.management.MBeanAttributeInfo;
import javax.management.MBeanServerConnection;
import javax.management.ObjectName;
import javax.management.remote.JMXConnector;
import javax.management.remote.JMXConnectorFactory;
import javax.management.remote.JMXServiceURL;

/**
 * Simple code example on how to execute
 * ctrl-break handlers remotely.
 * 
 * Usage:
 * RemoteJRCMD -host -port -user -pass -command []
 * 
 * All arguments are optional. If no command is
 * specified, all performance counters and their
 * current values are listed.
 * 
 * @author Marcus Hirt
 */
public final class RemoteJRCMD {
	private final static String KEY_CREDENTIALS = 
		"jmx.remote.credentials";
	private final static String JROCKIT_PERFCOUNTER_MBEAN_NAME = 
		"oracle.jrockit.management:type=PerfCounters";
	private final static String JROCKIT_CONSOLE_MBEAN_NAME = 
		"oracle.jrockit.management:type=JRockitConsole";
	private final static String[] SIGNATURE = 
		new String[] {"java.lang.String"};
	private final static String DIAGNOSTIC_COMMAND_MBEAN_NAME = 
		"oracle.jrockit.management:type=DiagnosticCommand";

	public static void main(String[] args)
			throws Exception {
		HashMap commandMap = 
			parseArguments(args);
		executeCommand(
				commandMap.get("-host"),
				Integer.parseInt(commandMap.get("-port")),
				commandMap.get("-user"),
				commandMap.get("-password"),
				commandMap.get("-command"));
	}

	private static HashMap parseArguments(
			String[] args) {
		HashMap commandMap = 
			new HashMap();
		commandMap.put("-host", "localhost");
		commandMap.put("-port", "7091");
		for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
			if (args[i].startsWith("-")) {
				StringBuilder buf = new StringBuilder();
				int j = i + 1;
				while (j < args.length
						&& !args[j].startsWith("-")) {
					buf.append(" ");
					buf.append(args[j++]);
				}
				commandMap.put(args[i],
						buf.toString().trim());
				i = j - 1;
			}
		}
		return commandMap;
	}

	@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
	public static void executeCommand(
			String host, int port, String user,
			String password, String command)
			throws Exception {
		MBeanServerConnection server = null;
		JMXConnector jmxc = null;
		Map map = null;
		if (user != null || password != null) {
			map = new HashMap();
			final String[] credentials = new String[2];
			credentials[0] = user;
			credentials[1] = password;
			map.put(KEY_CREDENTIALS, credentials);
		}
		// Use same convention as Sun. localhost:0 means
		// "VM, monitor thyself!"
		if (host.equals("localhost") && port == 0) {
			server = ManagementFactory.getPlatformMBeanServer();
		} else {
			jmxc = JMXConnectorFactory.newJMXConnector(
					createConnectionURL(host,
							port), map);
			jmxc.connect();
			server = jmxc.getMBeanServerConnection();
		}

		System.out.println("Connected to " + host
				+ ":" + port);

		try {
			server.getMBeanInfo(new ObjectName(
					JROCKIT_CONSOLE_MBEAN_NAME));
		} catch (InstanceNotFoundException e1) {
			server.createMBean(
					"oracle.jrockit.management.JRockitConsole",
					null);
		}

		if (command == null) {
			ObjectName perfCounterObjectName = new ObjectName(
					JROCKIT_PERFCOUNTER_MBEAN_NAME);
			System.out.println("Listing all counters...");
			MBeanAttributeInfo[] attributes = server.getMBeanInfo(
					perfCounterObjectName).getAttributes();
			System.out.println("Counter\tValue\n=======\t====");

			String[] attributeNames = new String[attributes.length];
			for (int i = 0; i < attributes.length; i++) {
				attributeNames[i] = attributes[i].getName();
			}
			Iterator valueIter = server.getAttributes(
					perfCounterObjectName,
					attributeNames).iterator();
			while (valueIter.hasNext()) {
				Attribute attr = (Attribute) valueIter.next();
				System.out.println(attr.getName()
						+ "\t=\t"
						+ attr.getValue());
			}
		} else {
			System.out.println("Invoking the ctrl-break command '"
					+ command + "'...");
			ObjectName consoleObjectName = new ObjectName(
					DIAGNOSTIC_COMMAND_MBEAN_NAME);
			Object[] params = new Object[1];
			params[0] = command;
			System.out.println("The CtrlBreakCommand returned: \n"
					+ server.invoke(
							consoleObjectName,
							"execute", params,
							SIGNATURE));
		}

		if (jmxc != null) {
			jmxc.close();
		}
	}

	private static JMXServiceURL createConnectionURL(
			String host, int port)
			throws MalformedURLException {
		return new JMXServiceURL("rmi", "", 0,
				"/jndi/rmi://" + host + ":"
						+ port + "/jmxrmi");
	}
}

(This example can also be found in the JRockit book, at the end of chapter 11.)

The following example would list all the performance counters and their values on the JVM running the RemoteJRCMD itself:

java RemoteJRCMD –port 0

The following example would list all the available commands in a JVM with a management agent open on the default port (7091) on localhost:

java RemoteJRCMD –command help

The following example would print the help on the command “print_threads”, which performs a thread stack dump:

java RemoteJRCMD –command help print_threads

The following example would print a heap histogram per class for the JVM running on port 4711 on the host adastra:

java RemoteJRCMD –port 4711 –host adastra –command print_object_summary

I will be presenting the following two sessions at Java One in Hyderabad next week:

Looking forward to seeing you there!

I will be presenting the following two sessions at Java One in Moscow next week:

Looking forward to seeing you there!

So, if you happen to be at JavaOne Tokyo, and fancy some information on the JRockit & Hotspot convergence project, my session is tomorrow (4th of April) at 18:15!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Sometimes when you use Mission Control remotely, or when analyzing a Flight Recording from a computer in another time zone, you may want to use the same time zone in the Mission Control client as the remote computer. You may, for instance, have access to logs where the time stamps are in the remote computer’s time zone, and you would want all the time stamps in the Flight Recorder user interface to be in the same time zone. Of course, one way to do this is to change the time zone of the computer running the Mission Control client. However, an easier way is to add the user.timezone parameter to the Mission Control launcher, like this:

jrmc -J-Duser.timezone=PST

Substitute PST for the time zone needed, e.g. EST, GMT, CET.

On some machines you will not be able to use abbreviated time zone names. On such machines, simply use the full time zone name, such as America/Los_Angeles. You can hook up the Mission Control Console to itself to verify that the time zone was properly set:

I will be delivering a talk on the current state of the HotSpot and JRockit JVM convergence at EclipseCon 2012. For more information, see:

http://www.eclipsecon.org/2012/sessions/state-jrockit-hotspot-convergence-presented-oracle

My talk will be on Thursday the 29th of March, 11:00 – 11:45 in room Lake Anne.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

I’ve been invited to  present the following session at Jfokus:

Presentation: What to Expect from HotRockit

Oracle is converging the HotSpot and Oracle JRockit JVMs to produce a "best-of-breed JVM." Internally, the project is sometimes referred to as the HotRockit project. This presentation discusses what to expect from the converged JVM over the next two years and how this will benefit the Java community.

My session will take place in A2, at 14:00 on Wednesday the 15th of February. Looking forward to seeing you there!