kitty: A lightweight, Production-class Java application server performance diagnostic & administration utility

Abstract

A lightweight, production focused, Java-based application server performance diagnostic and management utility

Proposal

Provide a lightweight utility for managing Tomcat and Geronimo application servers with powerful performance diagnostics and troubleshooting abilities primarily for supporting Tomcat in production/high volume use. (future) Provide support for all Java application servers

Background

The answer is simple, there is not a lightweight, command line administration utility that can be utilized across open source application servers. There are many utilities which have been created such as jmxsh, but they do not solve the problem of having a lightweight administration / debugging client for troubleshooting these open source application servers such as Apache Tomcat and Geronimo.

Rationale

There needs to be a lightweight, administration client that targets production use based on the experience of those administering Tomcat (and other open source Java application servers) in high-volume, large scale production environments. Such an administration tool will help further these open source application servers in production, large-installation grade implementations and better support such “industrial-grade” use.

Initial Goals

kitty is an existing open source project, with two contributors. We would bring in more folks with experience in managing high-volume production Web sites to contribute to the architecture of the kitty project. Currently we have two committers both with high-volume, production Web experience. We’d also leverage feedback from the community in this context and integrate that into the utility to provide a truly powerful management and performance diagnostic utility for Tomcat/Geronimo and other Java application servers.

We will add common diagnostic hooks into the application as a first step, for example, show available memory, threading problems, JDBC, and Web application diagnostic hooks.

The application will run in script mode (future) for automation purposes, or interactive mode, so it can be used for ad-hoc troubleshooting.

Supported Platforms Apache Tomcat 6.0+

Future Support

Apache Geronimo All other Java application servers

Known Risks

Currently the application is coded in Jython. Jython makes a suitable fit for many command-line administration tools. We plan on creating a pure, Groovy-based port of kitty in the next few weeks, primarily for ease of compilation/portability.

We understand that developing this in Jython makes it faster to develop the utility, but increases it’s complexity for compilation. We are in the process of converting the project to Groovy to address this issue.

Initial Source

http://github.com/msacks/kitty (Original Jython port) http://github.com/msacks/kitty-groovy (Groovy port)

External Dependencies

  • Jython 2.5.1
  • Groovy

Documentation

  1. README (Documentation) http://github.com/msacks/kitty/blob/master/README

2. kitty's Pre-inception http://www.tomcatexpert.com/blog/2010/05/17/creating-custom-tools-monitoring-tomcat

Initial Committers

  • Matthew Sacks (matthew at matthewsacks.com)
  • Peary Chiu (pearychiu at gmail.com)
  • Jim Jagielski (jim at apache.org)
  • Stuart Williams (pidster at apache.org)
  • Rainer Jung (rjung at apache.org)
  • Senaka Fernando (senaka at apache.org)
  • James Bray (james_r_bray at hotmail.com)

Required Resources

  • Subversion
  • Jira
  • Wiki
  • Website Space

Mailing Lists

  • kitty@incubator.apache.org

Subversion Repository

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/kitty

Issue Tracking

Jira; project known as ‘kitty’

Affiliations

  • Matthew Sacks (GlassCode Inc.)
  • Peary Chiu (self, also employed by Edmunds Inc.)
  • Jim Jagielski (ASF/ VMware)
  • Stuart Williams (VMware)
  • Rainer Jung (Kippdata.de)

Champion

Jim Jagielski

Sponsors: Nominated Mentors

  • Jim Jagielski
  • Mark Thomas
  • Kevan Miller

Sponsor

Apache Incubator

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