Can I use Spring JMX connectors with JBoss EAP?

Solution Unverified - Updated 5 Aug 2024

Environment

Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.x

Issue

I would like to use Spring JMX to invoke a MBean.

EAP does not expose jmx over rmi but with remoting-jmx. However, when we attempt to use this with spring-jmx component I get the following stack trace even though I have followed the steps in the document "MalformedURLException Unsupported protocol remoting-jmx when JMX client tries to connect to JBoss EAP 6 MBean Server" to include org.jboss.remoting-jmx as a dependency to my deployment and the Spring module that I've installed on JBoss EAP.

java.net.MalformedURLException: Unsupported protocol: remoting-jmx
	at javax.management.remote.JMXConnectorServerFactory.newJMXConnectorServer(JMXConnectorServerFactory.java:342) [rt.jar:1.7.0_17]
	at org.springframework.jmx.support.ConnectorServerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(ConnectorServerFactoryBean.java:154) [org.springframework.context-3.2.6.RELEASE.jar:3.2.6.RELEASE]
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1571) [org.springframework.beans-3.2.6.RELEASE.jar:3.2.6.RELEASE]
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1509) [org.springframework.beans-3.2.6.RELEASE.jar:3.2.6.RELEASE]

Resolution

Use spring-integration which includes jmx capabilities.

Here's an extract from a Spring beans configuration that uses Spring jmx capabilities from spring-integration

	<bean id="clientConnector"
		class="org.springframework.jmx.support.MBeanServerConnectionFactoryBean">
		<property name="serviceUrl" value="service:jmx:remoting-jmx://myJbossInstance:9999" />
	</bean>
	<context:component-scan base-package="org.jboss.example.packages.to.scan" />

	<bean id="proxy" class="org.springframework.jmx.access.MBeanProxyFactoryBean">
		<property name="objectName" value="bean:name=testBean" />
		<property name="proxyInterface" value="org.jboss.examples.test.IJmxTest" />
		<property name="server" ref="clientConnector" />
	</bean>

Root Cause

The main problem is what version of Spring do you want to use?

Spring-jmx is what was used about 8 or 9 years ago and will not work with the modern versions of Spring. If you must use spring-jmx you should use the older version of Spring-framework (2.0 / 2.5) and that will require you to use Snowdrop to get it to work on JBoss. This is not recommended because spring-jmx is no longer around and has not a release since 2008.

However if you just want the JMX feature with MBeans then using the latest version of spring-framework and spring-integration, which includes Spring jmx capabilities. This feature in Spring however is not supported on JBoss EAP as it's not been tested 1^. Spring 4.x works much better with JBoss than older versions of Spring.

Please take a look at Content from docs.spring.io is not included.2^ and Content from projects.spring.io is not included.3^.

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