How to Enable YourKit Java Profiler Configuration to Java Applications on Cloud Foundry

Products

• VMware Tanzu Application Service for VMs

Issue/Introduction

Here are the instructions to enable YourKit Java Profiler configuration to Java applications on Cloud Foundry. 

Environment

Resolution

1. Enable the JBP_CONFIG_YOUR_KIT_PROFILER environment variable. This can be done by editing application manifest.yml or invoking the "cf set-env" command. In this article, we use the application manifest as an example. 

---
applications:
- name: <APP_NAME>
 memory: 512M
 instances: 1
 path: path/java-app.war
 env:
   JBP_CONFIG_YOUR_KIT_PROFILER: '{enabled: true}'  

2. Set up SSH tunnel for YourKit Java Profiler: 

cf ssh -N -T -L 10001:localhost:10001 <APP_NAME>

Once the SSH tunnel has been created, YourKit Java Profiler should connect to localhost:10001 for debugging. Please refer to the detailed instructions at Java Buildpack YourKit Profiler Framework . 

Impact

Enabling the YourKit Java Profiler will very likely make the application startup time increase. In case the application fails to start due to timeout, we suggest setting "-t 180" to push the application start timeout to the max.

Additional Information

The instructions are only useful in Diego-based containers with SSH access enabled. Diego was introduced in PCF v1.6.x and turns to be mandatory in v1.7.x. Additionally, the remote monitoring/debugging feature is only available in Java Buildpack v3.4+.

PCF is not a development platform; you can use it, but it is going to be slow. Users should develop software locally and treat PCF as a deployment target. PCF Dev is provided to set up a compact PCF on the local machine for development/debugging use.