The Java sensor provides automated code instrumentation for supported technologies, zero configuration health monitoring of JVM instances, and end-to-end traces of requests across all systems.
Due to potential JVM bugs, we recommend using the most up to date JVM versions to make use of bug-free runtimes.
Note: Do not attempt to use agents from multiple vendors at the same time; this leads to unpredictable results and might crash your application. The Instana agent does not automatically monitor JVMs that also have the following agents running:
This is not supported. If you decide to monitor JVMs running any of the above agents, set the following value:
com.instana.plugin.javatrace:
trace-jvms-with-problematic-agents: trueThe following JVM distributions are supported.
| Name | Limitations |
|---|---|
| Amazon Corretto | - |
| Azul Zulu | - |
| IBM J9 | See IBM J9 limitations. |
| IBM OpenJ9 | - |
| OpenJDK | - |
| AdoptOpenJDK | - |
| Oracle HotSpot | - |
| SAP JVM | - |
| Sun HotSpot | - |
| BEA JRockit | - |
On Amazon Corretto, Azul Zulu, OpenJDK, Oracle HotSpot, or SAP JVM, make the tools.jar file available in the runtime of each monitored JVM. The file is located at $JAVA_HOME/lib/tools.jar.
The Java 8 builds up to 1.8.0_40 have several known issues relating to the implementation of lambdas. Due to these issues, the Instana agent does not monitor Java 8 builds 1.8.0_40 or lower.
When using the G1 garbage collector, please update to 1.8.0_181 or later, as some crashes have been fixed in later releases.
Java 9 introduces modularized builds based on the Jigsaw framework. If you use a custom runtime image, such as those created with jmod or jlink, make sure to include the following two modules in the instrumented JVM:
java.instrumentjdk.attachTIP: To check if your Java 9 or higher runtime contains the required java.instrument and jdk.attach modules, run the following command:
java --list-modulesIf you try running the command on a JVM version 8 or lower, the Unrecognized option: --list-modules error message is displayed.
Running on Windows
A popular choice for running services, such as Apache Tomcat, is to use the in-process Server JVM.
In those cases the monitored processes do not run as C:\java12\bin\java.exe but as C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.5\bin\Tomcat8.exe. This setup is supported, but before starting the service like this set PATH=%PATH%;C:\java12\bin, the bin directory on the JVM running the service must be on the PATH.
This is because the server jvm.dll needs to load the C:\java12\bin\instrument.dll. If it is specified on the path, it will not find it, and this results in an error:
com.sun.tools.attach.AgentLoadException: Failed to load agent library: instrument was not loaded.Can't find dependent librariesIf -javaagent is not set as a command line argument, certain versions of J9 will not support all the required features. We recommend starting the JVM with the javaagent by running this command:
java -javaagent:instana-javaagent-1.0.0.jar -jar app.jar server
The JAR is available in maven central and for more information about the JVM agent, see the GitHub repository.
If using Java 8 - Service refresh 3 fix pack 22 (Dec 2016), the -XX:+EnableHCR option performs the same operation. This temporary option enables late attached agents to redefine or retransform classes. It might incur a performance penalty, however, and will be removed in a future update when no longer necessary.
To enable tracing, additional command line switches may be required:
-Dcom.ibm.tools.attach.enable=yes should be the default setting.-Xshareclasses:none (class sharing can interfere with bytecode instrumentation) or if available -Xshareclasses:enableBCI to enable instrumentation despite class sharing.| Name | Versions |
|---|---|
| Akka HTTP | >= 2.4, >= 10.0 |
| Apache Async HttpClient | >= 4.0 |
| Apache Axis | >= 1.3 |
| Apache Axis2 | >= 1.5 |
| Apache CXF | >= 2.3, >= 3.0 |
| Apache HttpClient | >= 3.0, >= 4.3 |
| Apache Wicket | >= 6.0, >= 7.4, >= 8.5 |
| AsyncHttpClient (AHC) | >= 2.0 |
| AsyncHttpClient (NING) | >= 1.8 |
| DropWizard | >= 0.9, >= 1.0, >= 2.0 |
| Feign | >= 9.0, >= 10.2, >= 11.0 |
| Finagle | >= 6.45 |
| GraphQL (Servlet) | >= 8.0, >= 9.0 |
| GraphQL (Spring Boot) | >= 1.0 |
| GraphQL Java | >= 4.2, >= 5.0, >= 6.0, >= 7.0, >= 8.0, >= 9.7, >= 10.0, >= 11.0, >= 12.0, >= 13.0 |
| Grizzly | >= 2.1 |
| HTTP Kit | >= 2.2 |
| http4s1 | >= 0.19.0 |
| HttpUrlConnection | All supported JDKs |
| JAX-RS | |
| JAX-WS | |
| Jersey | >= 1.1, >= 2.20 |
| JSF | >= 2.0 |
| Micronaut | >= 1.1, >= 2.0 |
| NanoHTTPD | >= 2.2 |
| OkHttp | >= 2.0, >= 3.4, >= 4.0 |
| Play Framework (Play2) | >= 2.3 |
| Ratpack | >= 1.5 |
| RESTEasy | >= 3.0, >= 4.0 |
| Scalatra | >= 2.3 |
| Servlet | >= 2.0, >= 3.0, >= 4.0 |
| Spray | >= 1.3 |
| Spring Boot | >= 1.2.0.RELEASE, >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Spring Cloud Gateway | >= 2.0.2.RELEASE |
| Spring REST | >= 4.0.0.RELEASE, >= 5.0.0.RELEASE |
| Spring Web | >= 3.0.0.RELEASE, >= 4.0.0.RELEASE, >= 5.0.0.RELEASE |
| Spring Webflux | >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Vaadin | >= 7.0, >= 8.7 |
| Vert.x-Web | >= 3.0, >= 4.0 |
| WebMethods Glue | >= 5.0 |
| Name | Versions |
|---|---|
| Amazon DynamoDB | >= 1.11 |
| Amazon Elasticache | >= 1.1 |
| Amazon S3 | >= 1.11 |
| Apache HBase | >= 1.1, >= 2.0 |
| Cassandra | >= 2.0, >= 3.0 |
| Couchbase | >= 2.5, >= 3.0 |
| Ehcache | >= 2.0 |
| ElasticSearch | >= 1.3, >= 2.3, >= 5.0, >= 6.0, >= 7.0 |
| FaunaDB | >= 1.2 |
| Google Cloud Bigtable (HBase 1.x) | >= 1.0 |
| Google Cloud Bigtable (HBase 2.x) | >= 1.1 |
| Google Cloud Storage | >= 1.2 |
| Hazelcast Java Client | >= 3.7 |
| JDBC | >= 4 |
| JDBC (H2 Database Engine) | >= 1.1 |
| JDBC (IBM DB2) | >= 11.1 |
| JDBC (Microsoft SQL Server) | >= 6.2, >= 7.0 |
| JDBC (MySQL Connector/J) | >= 5.1, >= 6.0, >= 8.0 |
| JDBC (Oracle) | >= 12.1, >= 19.3 |
| JDBC (PostgreSQL) | >= 7.4, >= 8.4, >= 9.0 |
| JDBC (Sybase) | >= 1.3 |
| MongoDB (Java Driver) | >= 2.13, >= 3.0 |
| MongoDB (ReactiveMongo) | >= 0.12.2 |
| MongoDB (Spring Data MongoDB) | >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Neo4j | >= 1.5 |
| Redis (Jedis) | >= 2.8, >= 3.0 |
| Redis (Lettuce) | >= 3.4, >= 4.1, >= 5.0 |
| Redis (Spring Data Redis) | >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Redis (Spring Redis Reactor) | >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Redis (Spring Session Data Redis) | >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Redis (Vert.x) | >= 3.1 |
| SpyMemcached | >= 2.10 |
| SpyMemcached (Amazon ElastiCache) | >= 1.1 |
| SpyMemcached (Google XMemcached) | >= 1.4, >= 2.0 |
| SpyMemcached (Netty) | >= 4.1 |
| SpyMemcached (Shade) | >= 1.8 |
| Name | Versions |
|---|---|
| Aerospike | >= 3.3, >= 4.0 |
| Akka Remote | >= 2.3 |
| Amazon Kinesis | >= 1.11 |
| Amazon SNS | >= 1.11 |
| Amazon SQS | >= 1.11 |
| Apache Camel | >= 2.17, >= 3.0 |
| Executor Pools | All supported JDKs |
| Fork Join Pool | All supported JDKs |
| gRPC | >= 1.2 |
| HornetQ | >= 2.2 |
| IBM MQ | >= 8.0 |
| JMS | |
| JMS (Apache ActiveMQ) | >= 5.13 |
| Kafka (Apache) | >= 0.9, >= 1.0, >= 2.0 |
| Kafka (Reactor) | >= 1.0 |
| Mule | >= 3.3 |
| Netflix Hystrix | >= 1.0 |
| RabbitMQ | >= 3.6, >= 4.11, >= 5.7 |
| RabbitMQ (Spring) | >= 1.0.0.RELEASE, >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Tibco ESB |
| Name | Versions |
|---|---|
| Java Util Logging | All supported JDKs |
| JBoss Log Manager (Log4j) | >= 1.0 |
| JBoss Logging2 | >= 3.0 |
| Log4j | >= 1.2 |
| Log4j 2 | >= 2.4 |
| Log4j over SLF4J | >= 1.5 |
| Logback | >= 0.9, >= 1.0 |
| SLF4J | >= 1.5 |
| SLF4J over Log4j | >= 1.1 |
| Name | Versions |
|---|---|
| JNDI | All supported JDKs |
| Ldaptive (Apache) | >= 1.0 |
| Ldaptive (JLDAP) | >= 1.0 |
| Ldaptive (JNDI) | >= 1.0 |
| Ldaptive (Netscape) | >= 1.0 |
| Ldaptive (UnboundID) | >= 1.0 |
| Netscape | >= 4.1 |
| Novell | >= 2009 |
| UnboundID | >= 3.2 |
| Name | Versions |
|---|---|
| Akka Actor | >= 2.3 |
| Corba (Sun) | |
| DistributeMe | >= 2.3 |
| EJB (Apache Open EJB) | >= 4.0 |
| EJB (Glassfish) | |
| EJB (JBoss / Wildfly) | >= 5, >= 7, >= 8, >= 11 |
| EJB (Weblogic) | >= 12 |
| FTP Commons | >= 3.5 |
| FTP JSCH | >= 0.1.38 |
| Google Cloud Store | >= 1.2 |
| Google GWT User | >= 1.5, >= 2.0 |
| Java Mail | All supported JDKs |
| Java RMI | All supported JDKs |
| JBoss Scheduler | >= 4.2 |
| Kotlin Coroutines | >= 1.0 |
| Lift Actor | >= 2.6, >= 3.3 |
| Quartz Scheduler | >= 1.7, >= 2.0 |
| Seam Mail (JBoss) | >= 3.1 |
| Spring Batch | >= 1.1.4.RELEASE, >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Spring Context | >= 3.0.0.RELEASE, >= 4.0.1.RELEASE, >= 5.0.0.RELEASE |
| Spring Mail | >= 1.2.0.RELEASE, >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Spring Scheduler | >= 1.1.4.RELEASE, >= 2.0.0.RELEASE |
| Sun ON/RPC | >= 1.1 |
| TABEX4 (BOI) | |
| Vert.x (Hazelcast Cluster Manager) | >= 3.3 |
The Java sensor is automatically deployed, configured, and installed by the Instana agent. To ensure your Java applications are instrumented, make sure your JVM distribution is supported.
Although there is no configuration required for out of the box metrics and distributed tracing, individual components are configurable.
For more information on how to configure the sensor, see Java configuration.
On the JVM dashboard, configuration and performance metrics for the JVM instance are displayed, along with any custom metrics.
| Configuration | Description |
|---|---|
| Java version | The Java version. |
| Java runtime | The Java Runtime Environment (JRE). |
| Maximum heap | Maximum heap size (GiB) allocated to the JVM. |
| Classpath | The classpath parameter set in the JVM. |
Total memory used by the JVM. The current measured KPI value is displayed.
Data point: Byte count is collected from java.lang.Runtime#totalMemory.
Number of threads that are in states: new, runnable, timed-waiting, waiting, or blocked. The values are displayed on a graph over a selected time period.
Data point:
java.lang.management.ThreadMXBean#getAllThreadIds.ThreadMXBean#getThreadInfo.Total heap memory used by the JVM. The value is displayed on a graph over a selected time period.
Data point:
java.lang.Runtime#totalMemory.-Xmx command line parameter or is collected from java.lang.Runtime#maxMemory.Memory pool usage. Heap and non-heap pools are displayed on a graph over a selected time period.
Data point:
ManagementFactory#getMemoryPoolMXBeans.java.lang.management.MemoryUsage.getMax, the initial value is collected from getInit, and the current value is collected from getUsage.Garbage collection activation and runtime values are displayed on a graph over a selected time period.
Data points:
ManagementFactory#getGarbageCollectorMXBeans.java.lang.management.GarbageCollectorMXBean.getCollectionTime which, according to JavaDoc, is the approximate accumulated collection elapsed time in milliseconds.getCollectionCount.getCollectionTime and getCollectionCount values are the calculated differential during 1 second.Calculated suspension of application execution displayed on a graph over a selected time period.
Data point: Calculated per the in-app Instana measurement thread.
For each sensor, there is a curated knowledge base of health signatures that are evaluated continuously against the incoming metrics and are used to raise issues or incidents depending on user impact.
Built-in events trigger issues or incidents based on failing health signatures on entities, and custom events trigger issues or incidents based on the thresholds of an individual metric of any given entity.
For information about the built-in events for the Java sensor, see the Built-in events reference.
If the JVM has the Dropwizard metrics library loaded, custom metrics are collected and displayed at the bottom of the JVM dashboard.
To prevent the backend from overloading, there is a default limit of 200 metrics.
To disable or change the limit of metrics being gathered, use the following configuration:
com.instana.plugin.java:
dropwizardMetricCollection:
enabled: false
limit: 200If the metrics are not displayed even though the library is loaded, register your MetricRegistry instance as the default. For example:
import com.codahale.metrics.SharedMetricRegistries;
import com.codahale.metrics.MetricRegistry;
MetricRegistry metricRegistry = new MetricRegistry();
SharedMetricRegistries.setDefault("default", metricRegistry);If the JVM has the Micrometer metrics library loaded, custom metrics are collected and displayed at the bottom of the JVM's dashboard.
To prevent the backend from overloading, there is a default limit of 200 metrics.
To disable or change the limit of metrics being gathered, use the following configuration:
com.instana.plugin.java:
micrometerMetricCollection:
enabled: false
limit: 200If the metrics are not displayed even though the library is loaded, consider registering your io.micrometer.core.instrument.MeterRegistry instance as the default one. For example:
import io.micrometer.core.instrument.Metrics;
Metrics.globalRegistry.add(meterRegistry)To view a live thread dump for the JVM, click Get Thread Dump.
To create a heap dump for the JVM, click Get Heap Dump. You will be prompted for a location local to the JVM to store the heap dump.
By default, all requests are monitored, and a distributed trace is created automatically for each of them. This includes cross host and cross language tracing.
For more information, see Instana AutoTrace™.
When using Log4j, Log4j2, or Logback, to enable a more precise correlation of logging and tracing, Instana automatically populates the MDC with the trace ID. The MDC variable name is instana.trace.id.
For information on how to use it in format strings, refer to the documentation for your logging framework.
Fully automated out-of-the-box tracing instrumentation is provided, but in some cases, you may prefer to send custom traces to your Instana dashboard. If so, there are are number of available methods.
If you want to instrument a framework that is not yet supported by Instana, or monitor the requests of a custom application, we recommend using the Java Trace SDK and viewing the GitHub repo.
Before you implement custom tracing using the SDK, please read the tracing best practices.
To collect traces that are described via the OpenTracing API, you must use Java OpenTracing. For more information, see OpenTracing.
IMPORTANT: Disable automatic tracing (Instana AutoTrace™) before using the Java OpenTracing API. For more information, see Disabling automatic instrumentation.
Instana provides an OpenCensus Trace Exporter for applications written in Java. Using the Instana agent processes as proxy, Instana forwards traces that are exported by applications instrumented with Census to its backend.
For more information, see the OpenCensus Exporters website.
IMPORTANT: Please disable automatic tracing (Instana AutoTrace™) if the agent is used on the same host as Census. For more information, see Disabling automatic instrumentation.
Profiles are essential for locating performance hot spots and bottlenecks at the code level. They are instrumental in reducing resource consumption and improving performance.
AutoProfile™ generates and reports process profiles to Instana. Unlike development-time and on-demand profilers, where a user must manually initiate profiling, AutoProfile™ automatically schedules and continuously performs profiling appropriate for critical production environments.
Instana AutoProfile™ is currently in technical beta and you can try it out today. For more information, see our Instana AutoProfile™ docs.
Monitoring issue type: java_8_unmonitored_version
Your application is running on an unsupported Java 8 Hotspot Virtual Machine with a version earlier than 1.8.0_40.
Instana will not monitor Java applications running in such a Hotspot Virtual Machine due to severe bugs in the latter that lead to incompatibilities and crashes.
We strongly advise to update the Java Virtual Machine to a more recent version, preferably a JDK 8 version 252 or above, or to another Java Long Term Support release.
For more information on the JVMs supported by Instana, please refer to the JVM support documentation.
Monitoring issue type: jvm_incompatible_agent_detected
The Instana agent has detect another agent attached to this Java Virtual Machine that is known to be incompatible. To prevent issues from occurring with this Java Virtual Machine, the Instana agent is not collecting tracing data from the application running inside the Java Virtual Machine. This may result in Application Perspectives, Services and Endpoints missing data, as well as spurious alerts about drop in calls to Application Perspectives, Services and Endpoints.
To resolve the issue, remove the incompatible agent from your Java Virtual Machine.
Monitoring issue type: agent_jvm_blacklisted
The Instana agent has blacklisted the Java Virtual Machine process from trying to attach to it. Initial attempts to instrument the process have failed.
To resolve the issue, try restarting the process. If that doesn't resolve the issue, please refer to the JVM support documentation to verify all other prerequisites for instrumenting this JVM are met.