Skip to main content

Remote debugging is a common practice for troubleshooting issues in software development.

If you are using Tomcat or TomEE with Docker containers as part of your stack you can find various techniques to enable debug capabilities in these types of containers:

1. Create a custom Docker image by extending an existing official one[1]
2. Extensive customization of CATALINA_OPSTS[2]

However, both approaches require extra steps in some scenarios. Below I share the simplest method I have used to do remote debugging in Apache Tomcat and Apache TomEE with a Docker image:

$
$ docker run -it -p 8080:8080 -p 8000:8000 -e CATALINA_OPTS="-agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=*:8000" tomcat:9.0.17-jre11

Parameters description:

  • docker run
    • Runs a docker container
  • -it
    • Enables interactive mode for the container. This allocates a pseudo-tty and keeps STDIN open even if not attached.
  • -p 8080:8080 -p 8000:8000
    • Exposes containers port to the docker host
  • -e CATALINA_OPTS="-agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=*:8000"
    • Minimum customization for CATALINA_OPTS to enable debug mode, useful for the majority of cases
  • tomcat:9.0.17-jre11
    • Image and label from the Docker container we want to run.
[1] https://github.com/docker-library/tomcat/issues/55
[2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36757784/jmx-and-debugging-on-tomcat-inside-docker

Cesar Hernandez

Cesar Hernandez

César Hernández is a Senior Software Engineer at Tomitribe with experience in Enterprise Java Applications. He is a Java Champion, Duke's Choice Award winner, Eclipse Committer, Open Source advocate, teacher, and public speaker. When César is away from a computer, he enjoys spending time with his family, traveling and playing music with the Java Community Band, The Null Pointers. Follow Cesar on twitter @CesarHgt
CesarHgt

One Comment

Leave a Reply