Preface

The Java^TM Dynamic Management Kit (DMK) provides a set of Java classes and tools for developing management solutions. This product conforms to the Java Management Extensions (JMX^TM), v1.1 Maintenance Release, which defines a three-level architecture:

• Resource instrumentation

• Dynamic agents

• Remote management applications

The JMX architecture is applicable to network management, remote system maintenance, application provisioning, and the new management needs of the service-based network.

Once you are familiar with management concepts, the Java Dynamic Management Kit 5.0 Tutorial is intended to demonstrate each of the management levels and how they interact. The parts of this tutorial will show you:

• The different ways of making your resources manageable

• How to write an agent and add management services dynamically

• How to access your resources from a remote management application

• The mechanism used to forward events and exceptions from agent to manager

Taken as a whole, these topics will demonstrate the complete development process for implementing a management solution in the Java programming language.

This book ends with a part devoted to the details of programming SNMP managers and agents (peers) using the Java DMK.

Who Should Use This Book

This tutorial is for developers who would like to learn how to instrument new or existing resources for management, write dynamic agents, or write management applications. You should be familiar with Java programming. Some tutorials also rely on system and network management concepts: knowledge of these is helpful, though not required.

This book is not intended to be an exhaustive reference. Management concepts and product features are covered in Getting Started with the Java Dynamic Management Kit 5.0, and the complete Javadoc^TM API definitions are provided in the online documentation package.

Before You Read This Book

To build and run the sample programs in this tutorial or use the tool commands provided in the Java DMK, you must have a complete installation of the product on your system.

Related Documentation

Before programming with the Java DMK you should be familiar with the concepts and tools used throughout this tutorial. The following books are part of the documentation set:

These books are available online after you have installed the documentation package of the Java DMK. The online documentation also includes the Javadoc API for the Java packages and classes, including those of the Java Management extensions. Using any web browser, open the home page corresponding to your platform. Table P–1 shows the location of the home page for the Solaris^TM operating environment and Windows 2000 operating environment.

In these file names, installDir refers to the base directory of your Java DMK installation. In a default installation procedure, installDir is:

• /opt on the Solaris platform

• C:\Program Files on the Windows 2000 platform

These conventions are used throughout this book whenever referring to files or directories which are part of the installation.

The Java DMK relies on the management architecture of the JMX specification. The specification document, Java Management Extensions Instrumentation and Agent Specification, v1.1 (Maintenance Release, March 2002) is provided in the product documentation package under the file name jmx_instr_agent.pdf.

The structure of this book is based on the The Java Tutorial:

• Online version:http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

• Paperback reference:The Java Tutorial Third Edition by Mary Campione, Kathy Walrath and Alison Huml; book and CD-ROM edition (December 2000); Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.; ISBN: 0201703939

Some chapters in the part on SNMP refer to RFC standards for further information. The complete text of RFC papers can be found on the Internet site of the Internet Engineering Task Force:

http://www.ietf.org/

Disclaimer – This site is in no way affiliated with Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Sun makes no claim as to the accuracy or relevance of the data it contains.

Directories and Classpath

These tutorials are based on the example programs shipped with the Java DMK. Each example is a set of Java source code files in a separate subdirectory. The following table gives the location of the main examples directory:

Except where noted, the source code in this book is taken from these example programs. However, some code fragments might be rearranged and comments might be changed. Program listings in the tutorials usually simplify comments and omit output statements for space considerations.

On the Solaris platform, you must have root access to write in the installed examples directory. For this reason, it might be necessary to copy all examples to a different location before compiling them. Throughout the rest of this book, we will use the term examplesDir to refer to the main examples directory in a location where you can compile and run them.

When either compiling or running the example programs, make sure that your PATH and CLASSPATH environment variables are correctly set to use the Java 2 SDK. In addition, your classpath must also contain the Java archive (JAR) files for the Java DMK runtime libraries (jdmkrt.jar and jsnmpapi.jar), as well as the current directory (.). For a Solaris platform, use the classpath given in Table P–2. For a Windows 2000 platform, use the classpath given in Table P–3.

.:installDir/SUNWjdmk/jdmk5.0/lib/jdmkrt.jar:
/usr/sadm/lib/snmp/jsnmpapi.jar

If you installed the software in the default directory on a Solaris platform, installDir will be /opt.

.;installDir\SUNWjdmk\jdmk5.0\lib\jdmkrt.jar;
installDir\SUNWjdmk\jdmk5.0\lib\jsnmpapi.jar

If you installed the software in the default directory on a Windows 2000 platform, installDir will be C:\Program Files

These classpaths assume that you are in the subdirectory of a particular example when compiling or running it. Specify the classpath on the command line of the javac and java tools with the -classpath option. The JDK version must match the version of the javac or java command that you are using.

Throughout the rest of this book, we will use the term classpath in command-line examples to indicate that you must use the classpath indicated in this section. You can also define this classpath in an environment variable according to your platform and omit its definition on the command line.

To use the proxygen and mibgen tools provided with the Java DMK, add the installation binary directory to your environment's path. The following table gives the location of this directory:

How This Book Is Organized

This book follows the organization of the The Java Tutorial. Each major part covers a subject and each chapter covers a topic within that subject.

• Part I: “Instrumentation Using MBeans” shows various ways of making a resource manageable, using standard MBeans, dynamic MBeans, model MBeans and open MBeans.

• Part II: “Agent Applications” demonstrates the functionality of the MBean server at the heart of an agent.

• Part III: “Remote Management Applications” covers how the Java DMK simplifies how a distant manager can access the resources in an agent.

• Part IV: “Agent Services” demonstrates the various kinds of management intelligence that can be dynamically added to an agent.

• Part V: “SNMP Interoperability” shows how Java agents can also implement SNMP agent, how to write and managers, how to implement SNMP security mechanisms, including SNMPv3 security, and how to implement an SNMP master agent

Accessing Sun Documentation

You can view and print a broad selection of Sun^TM documentation, including localized versions, at:

http://www.sun.com/documentation/

You can also purchase printed copies of select Sun documentation from iUniverse, the Sun documentation provider, at:

http://corppub.iuniverse.com/marketplace/sun/

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic changes used in this book.

In addition, bold typeface is used in some of the code samples to highlight important statements and enhance your understanding.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.