Debugging SJS AS 7

Version 5.0 of the NetBeans IDE has great support for version 8 of the
Sun Java System Application Server (SJS AS). But what if you are using version 7
of SJS AS? The IDE can still do plenty for you, including debugging. For the
test shown below, I used the 2004Q2UR4 release of SJS AS 7.1.

The first step is to start SJS AS in debug mode. This is easy enough to do. From
the admin console, go to the server settings page and check the Start in Debug Mode option.

Then just stop and restart the server. That will start the server's JVM with
the following flags (these are the default values):

  
    -Xdebug
    -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,
              server=y,
              suspend=n,
              address=2646 
    -Xnoagent 
    -Djava.compiler=NONE      
  

The second step is to create a project within the NetBeans IDE. This will give
the IDE a way to understand where your source code is, the required classpath, etc. For
this example I used one of the sample projects that is included with SJS AS 7.

1. Choose File > New Project
2. Under Categories choose General and then under
   Projects choose Java Project with Existing Ant Script and
   then click Next. Note:
   if you do not have an Ant build script then you can instead choose
   Java Project with Existing Source.
3. Set the Location field to the folder that contains your project. Note
   that in the example shown below, the IDE found the build.xml that was
   in that folder.
4. Set the Project Name to whatever value you want. Then click the
   Next button.
5. Click the Next button again to advance past the Build
   and Run actions.
6. Specify the source root folders for your application and then
   click Next.
7. Specify the classpath for your application and then click
   Finish.

The third step is to attach the IDE to the server's JVM. Choose Run
> Attach Debugger. In the Attach dialog verify that Socket
Attach is selected and that the Port number is 2646. Then click OK.

After the IDE attaches to the JVM you are ready to debug. You can set breakpoints by opening the source
files in the project and using Run > New Breakpoint.