Hawtio Overview and Installation
Published in
2 min readFeb 4, 2021
Introduction
Hawtio is a lightweight and modular HTML5 web console with lots of plugins for managing Java applications. Once installed it can connect to any Java process which has a Jolokia agent installed and view its JMX MBeans and work with its various services such as Apache Camel, Apache ActiveMQ or fabric8. Needless to say, that’s hawt!
Main features
- Dynamic agent/service search. Discover function used to detect services which can be integrated with Hawtio (ActiveMQ, Camel, Fabric8, etc.).
- JMX Management. Powerful JMX management using Jolokia and on the fly refreshes when a new application is deployed.
- System Information. It is basically a fully featured bundle of jconsole with psi-probe (Advanced manager and monitor for Apache Tomcat). It provides system informations, statistics, analysis and management.
- ActiveMQ Management Console.
- Decently sized. The war file is less than 33MB and it only needs to be deployed on a client/admin device. Jolokia + Hawtio + ActiveMQ < 55MB.
Step-by-step guide
- Install Jolokia (see Jolokia Overview and Installation)
- Download the hawtio-default.war file from Hawtio’s Github : https://github.com/hawtio/hawtio/releases
- Rename the hawtio war to hawtio.war for a shorter URL within Tomcat
- Copy the war inside the webapps folder of the tomcat
- Start Apache Tomcat (“catalina start” or “./catalina start”)
- Hawtio is now deployed and running. Test it by following this URL: http://localhost:8080/hawtio/. The following page should be displayed:
In order to register applications and services for monitoring you can:
- If the application or service to be registered runs locally, you can use Hawtio’s discover function (Connect tab → Discover). This will discover open connections on the server. From what I could test it, this function works very well with ActiveMQ and Camel, discovering them without any fuss. In recent versions, discovery support was added for more applications.
- If you want to connect remotely to an application or service, or if the first method did not work, you can connect manually Use Connect tab → Remote → Connection Settings. The connections you set up will be saved in Saved Connections for easier access.
Tips
- Hawtio can be easily integrated with services like Apache ActiveMQ, Apache Camel, Fabric8, Apache Tomcat, and it provides a better experience for managing those services.
- Explore the features of Hawtio by navigating through the top menu.
References