Monitoring JBoss AS or WildFly

Prerequisites

Before you configure the JBoss AS sensor for monitoring JBoss AS, make sure that you meet the following prerequisites:

• The Instana host agent is installed. For more information about installing the agent, see Installing host agents.
• The JBoss AS sensor is compatible with your current setup. For more information, see Support information.

Support information

To make sure that the sensor is compatible with your current setup, check the following support information sections:

Configuring JBoss AS or WildFly

After you install the agent, the Instana JBoss sensor is automatically installed and deployed. Though the JBoss sensor is enabled by default, it starts to collect JBoss monitoring data only after you enable statistics in JBoss or WildFly.

You can enable statistics in both stand-alone and domain modes of JBoss configuration.

• Stand-alone mode: A single instance of JBoss running on a single host, where each instance is managed independently.

• Domain mode: Multiple instances of JBoss running on multiple hosts, where all instances are managed centrally by a domain controller.

After you enable statistics in the JBoss, the Instana JBoss sensor starts collecting monitoring data from your JBoss environment.

Optional: Naming JBoss

If you want to set a custom name for your JBoss instance in Instana, use the following command. Replace myjbossnodename with the preferred name for your JBoss instance.

-Djboss.node.name=myjbossnodename

Optional: Configuring the JBoss AS sensor

After you install the Instana host agent and enable statistics in JBoss, the JBoss sensor starts to collect JBoss monitoring data.

If you want, you can change the JBoss sensor configuration by modifying the Instana agent configuration file <agent_install_dir>/etc/instana/configuration.yaml as shown in the following example:

com.instana.plugin.jbossas:
  metrics-interval: 5 # seconds
  monitor-ejb-deployments: false
  monitor-ejb-deployments-regex: '' # provide regex for ejb deployment you want to monitor i.e xyz*
  monitor-web-deployments-regex: '' # provide regex for web deployment you want to monitor i.e xyz*
  monitor-data-source-config-regex: '' # provide regex for data source configuration you want to monitor i.e xyz*
  monitor-connector-regex: '' # provide regex for connectors configuration you want to monitor i.e xyz*

The following table outlines the configuration parameters:

At large scale, the JBoss API might be inefficient. Therefore, the sensor polls performance metrics every 5 seconds. You can configure the polling interval by modifying the value in the metrics-interval field.

In certain earlier versions of JBoss, calls to retrieve EJB deployments data can cause various errors due to existing bugs. The JBoss sensor monitors EJB deployments by default, but you can disable it if these bugs occur or if not required. To disable monitoring of EJB deployments, modify the monitor-ejb-deployments flag in the configuration file.

By default, JBoss regex monitoring for EJB deployments, web deployments, data source, and connector is not enabled. You can configure JBoss regex for monitoring a particular deployment in the agent configuration file.

Viewing JBoss metrics

You can view all the information about your JBoss AS or WildFly in the Instana UI.

To view JBoss metrics, complete the following steps:

1. From the navigation menu in the Instana UI, select Infrastructure.
2. Click a specific monitored host.

You can see a host dashboard with all the collected metrics and monitored processes, including configuration data, performance metrics, heath signature, and traces.

Viewing traces

After you install the Instana host agent, the Instana agent automatically instruments all the JVM-based applications to collect the traces (request-level data).

You can view the traces of these Java applications in the Analytics dashboard in the Instana UI. For more information about viewing traces, see Analyzing traces and calls.