Streamlining Production Troubleshooting with Payara Server's Diagnostic Tool

Diagnosing issues in production environments can be a daunting task without the right tools. When problems arise, having access to comprehensive diagnostic information is critical for quick resolution. This is where Payara Server's little known diagnostic tool comes into play, offering a powerful solution for collecting important server data on demand.

The Need for Comprehensive Diagnostics

When troubleshooting production issues, developers and support teams often require a wide range of information to pinpoint the root cause. This may include:

1. Server configuration details
2. Runtime logs
3. Performance metrics
4. Thread and memory usage data

Manually collecting this information can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially in complex, distributed environments. Payara's diagnostic tool addresses this challenge by providing a simplified method for collecting critical server runtime data.

What Can Payara's Diagnostic Tool Collect?

Payara's diagnostic tool is designed to gather a comprehensive set of information, including:

• domain.xml configuration file
• Server logs
• Notification logs
• Access logs
• JVM thread dump
• JVM heap dump
• JVM report

This wealth of information provides a holistic view of the server's state, enabling faster and more accurate problem diagnosis and remediation where necessary.

How the Diagnostic Tool Works

The diagnostic tool is accessible through the collect-diagnostics Asadmin CLI subcommand. Here's what makes it particularly useful:

1. Flexible Targeting: You can collect data from specific server instances, deployment groups, or clusters.
2. Offline Collection: Even if targets are offline, the tool can still gather configuration files and logs.
3. Data Obfuscation: For greater security, the --obfuscate parameter allows hiding of sensitive information like passwords and hostnames in collected data.
4. Organized Output: The collected data is neatly organized in a ZIP file, with a clear directory structure for easy navigation.

How To Use The Payara Diagnostic Tool

Let's look at a practical example of using the diagnostic tool:

asadmin> collect-diagnostics --target deploymentGroup1 mydomain

This command collects diagnostic information from all instances in the deploymentGroup1 of the mydomain domain. The tool provides detailed output of its progress, ensuring you know exactly what data is being collected. You can type:

asadmin>  collect-diagnostics --help

To view all available options of the subcommand.

Benefits for Production Support

The Payara diagnostic tool offers several key benefits for production support:

1. Speed: Quickly gather all necessary information in one command.
2. Consistency: Ensure that all required data is collected every time.
3. Security: Obfuscate sensitive data when needed.
4. Flexibility: Collect data even when the Domain Administration Server (DAS) is unavailable.

Conclusions

Having the right diagnostic information can literally save money and time in a production environment where often a lot can go wrong without notice. Payara Server's diagnostic tool allows support teams and developers to quickly gather comprehensive server and runtime information, streamlining the troubleshooting process and reducing downtime. The diagnostic tool is built into Payara Platform Enterprise, our production-optimized, fully supported application server that you can trial for free.

Ready to experience the power of comprehensive diagnostics in your production environment? Download Payara Enterprise and give it a try to see what valuable diagnostic information you can gather. Your path to smoother, more efficient troubleshooting starts here!