JMX Interface

by SuperBonBon

JMX Interface

JMX and JAFS > Why JMX > JMX adapters > JMX interface status > JMX interface GUI

JMX and JAFS

JAFS uses JMX for its management interface. This interface consists of multiple management beans (called MBeans) who can be used to administrate the different parts of JAFS. Basically each MBeans have attributes (a port on a FTP server MBean) who can be changed, as well as operations (start/stop/close an FTP server)

Why JMX

JMX has become the defacto standard for administration in the Java world and brings multiple advantages :

Remote access to the management interface.
Secure or non secure remote access (SSL/TLS).
Authenticated access to the interface.
Federated management interfaces for administrators, regrouping all Java JMX enabled applications (J2EE, FTP, Mail) in the enterprise IT environment. (take a look at MC4J console).
Access to the interface either by programmatic way or by a generic JMX GUI.

Here is why JMX has been choosed to manage JAFS.

JMX adapters

JMX adapters are used to communicate with the managment interface. The JMX adapters page documents all the available adapters to cummunicate with the management interface and explains how to add/remove them from the JAFS service configuration file.

Here is a short list of the supported protocols :

JRMP
IIOP
Web Service oriented (Axis)
Hessian
Burlap

Note

All these adapters are based on MX4J adapters.

JMX interface status

Currently the JMX interface provided with JAFS is not complete and must be considered as a work in progress. It currently contains all the required MBeans to manage all the basics of :

Create/remove FTP servers
FTP server
FTP client sessions
Logs
Basic statistics

The goal is to provide an interface who manages 100% of the functionalities ASAP (help welcomed).

JMX interface GUI

The JMX interface can be acessed with your browser when the MX4J HTTP console adapter is enabled (by default).

This interface is unfortunatly not really user friendly because it is a generic interface to access any type of MBeans. We are aware of this issue and we are planning to create a custom http based user interface to manage JAFS using its JMX instrumentation. If you want to join us to create this interface contact us via the forums or contact button.