Hawtio Overview and Installation

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

1. Install Jolokia (see Jolokia Overview and Installation)
2. Download the hawtio-default.war file from Hawtio’s Github : https://github.com/hawtio/hawtio/releases
3. Rename the hawtio war to hawtio.war for a shorter URL within Tomcat
4. Copy the war inside the webapps folder of the tomcat
5. Start Apache Tomcat (“catalina start” or “./catalina start”)
6. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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

• Hawtio documentation