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Shubhankar Soni
It is critical to have the correct monitoring tools in the right places while debugging Performance Bottlenecks in Production/Non-Production Environments. Glowroot is a strong open-source APM solution that is simple to set up and operate. There are different modes of setting up Glowroot i.e.
- Glowroot as Agent
- Glowroot as Central Collector
In this blog, we'll go through how to configure Glowroot as a Central Collector and use Collector agents deployed on Liferay to collect data and deliver it to Glowroot central.
Pre-Requisites:
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Separate VM/Server dedicated to glowroot.
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Regular OS User preferably glowroot.
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JAVA_HOME set for OS user created above (glowroot). In this blog Azul JDK11 is used.
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Cassandra 3.1 or later will be used as Database for Glowroot Central.
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Glowroot Central and Cassandra DB will be installed on Same server.
H/w Recommendations:
The following suggestions are not official, but rather based on experience.
- CPU: 8 Cores
- Memory/RAM: 8/16GB
- Storage: 100GB
Architecture Diagram:
Some Advantages:
- Does not use Liferay's JVM to run, hence it does not interfere with Liferay's JVM operation and places little to no impact on Liferay's JVM.
- Because Glowroot central is installed on a different VM/server, it does not consume and hinder the Liferay server's OS resources, which is not the case when Glowroot as Agent is installed on the Liferay server.
Download and Install JDK:
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Login via glowroot user in Glowroot server/VM.
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Download any jdk11 ( here Azul jdk11 is used)
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Go to /home/glowroot/ directory and open .bash_profile or .bashrc and add the jvm path like below
export
JAVA_HOME=/home/glowroot/zulu11.66.15-ca-jdk11.0.20-linux_x644
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
4. Save and Exit the above file.
5. Now run source .bashrc
command to reflect the changes.
6. Once done check Java as per the below snapshot.
Download & Install Cassandra
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Go to https://dlcdn.apache.org/cassandra/4.0.11/apache-cassandra-4.0.11-bin.tar.gz and download Cassandra binary file and paste it in the /home/glowroot/ directory.
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Unzip the binary file downloaded above in the same directory /home/glowroot/
(use tar -xvzf apache-cassandra-4.0.11-bin.tar.gz to unzip)
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Go to /home/glowroot/apache-cassandra-4.0.11/bin and execute below command to start cassandra db
nohup ./cassandra &
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Cassandra will start running in some time.
Download & Install Glowroot Central:
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Go to https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/wiki/Central-Collector-Installation and download the available glowroot central zip file.
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Copy the downloaded zip file to the server in directory /home/glowroot/ and unzip.
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After unzipping go inside the glowroot-central/ directory.
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Now, start Glowroot central by running below command
nohup java -jar glowroot-central.jar &
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Now open the browser and hit http://GlowrootIP:4000 (replace GlowrootIP with the IP address of the Glowroot server)
Configure Glowroot Collector Agent:
(Follow the below steps in all Liferay App Nodes)
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Go to the Liferay server and go to liferay_Home/
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Download the glowroot-agent zip from the link
https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/wiki/Agent-Installation-(for-Central-Collector)
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Copy the zip downloaded above to liferay_home/ folder and extract it.
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Go inside glowroot/ directory and create a file with the name glowroot.properties
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Open the glowroot.properties file and add below parameters
agent.id=LiferayNodeHostname
collector.address= http://GlowrootServerIP:8181
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Save and exit after making the above changes.
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Make sure to replace LiferayNodeHostname with the original hostname of liferay app server.
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Go to Liferay_home/tomcat/bin/ directory and open setenv.sh file.
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Add the Java agent entry in setenv.sh file.
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Start/Restart liferay servers to load the javaagent .
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Below logs will appear in catalina.out log file which means Liferay’s glowroot agent is successfully able to communicate with Glowroot central server.
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Once the Liferay app is UP and running, go to Glowroot Central in Browser. In the Java agent drop-down, the Liferay node hostname will start coming.
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Voilà, you're done!
References
| # |
Software/Tool |
Reference Links |
| 1. | Azul JDK 11 | https://www.azul.com/downloads/?version=java-11-lts&os=rhel&architecture=x86-64-bit&package=jdk#zulu |
| 2. | Cassandra DB | https://dlcdn.apache.org/cassandra/4.0.11/apache-cassandra-4.0.11-bin.tar.gz |
| 3. | Glowroot Central | https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/wiki/Central-Collector-Installation |
| 4. | Glowroot Collector Agent | https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/wiki/Agent-Installation-(for-Central-Collector) |
MUST READ:
https://liferay.dev/blogs/-/blogs/setting-up-glowroot-apm
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