hawtio connecting to remote ActiveMQ brokers

hawtio which is an awesome web console allows you to manage your Java stuff. hawtio has a plugin for managing ActiveMQ brokers.

hawtio allows to run in one JVM and connect remotely to other JVMs. This allow you to have dedicated boxes with the management console, and leave it out of your production boxes which runs your ActiveMQ brokers, and other server stuff.  It also makes it easier to mange the network topology as people who need web access to the management console only need access to the boxes where the management console is hosted, and not direct access to your production servers. Only the boxes where the management console is hosted needs network connection to the production servers.

Anyway what I wanted to talk about in this blog, is how to use the latest hawtio 1.2.2 as a standalone application to connect to remote ActiveMQ brokers.

For this we use
- hawtio 1.2.2
- activemq 5.8.0

And in ActiveMQ 5.9 hawtio is shipped out of the box.

Starting hawtio

To do this we download the executable hawtio 1.2.2 which you can find on that big button on the getting started page.

To start hawtio we simply run this command from the command line:

java -jar hawtio-app-1.2.2.jar

This starts hawtio on port 8080, though you can specify the port number to use with --port option. For more information see the hawtio getting started page.

Connecting to ActiveMQ 5.8.0

We have Apache ActiveMQ 5.8.0 running on a box. For demonstration purpose I run it on my local laptop, and start ActiveMQ as follows:

davsclaus:/opt/apache-activemq-5.8.0$ bin/activemq console

Then from hawtio we click the Connect tab, and enter the details as shown in the screenshot below:

Connecting from hawtio to a remote ActiveMQ 5.8 broker

The username and password is by default admin/admin. Though that can be changed on the ActiveMQ broker, so make sure to use correct login credentials. And I use localhost as hostname because I run everything from the same box. But you can of course enter a DNS or IP name for remote connection.

When you are connected then the navigation bar in hawtio changes to which plugins are currently available running in that remote JVM. As its ActiveMQ 5.8 broker, you should see the ActiveMQ plugin, and can see broker details, as shown in screenshot below:

Connected to remote ActiveMQ 5.8 broker

hawtio as desktop/browser application

In the upcoming hawtio 1.2.3 release James has been cooking some cool stuff to run hawtio as a desktop app and as a browser extension.

A little sneak peak is shown below where you can see hawtio as a app in the Chrome browser.

hawtio as an application in the Chrome browser

There is a few things to iron out to have hawtio fully working as a desktop app and as browser extension. 

Back from Barcelona

Last week I presented Apache Camel, and we had also a workshop in Barcelona, hosted by the BarcelonaJUG.

This morning I am back in my office, and thought I wanted to post a follow up blog, including some photos of the event.

On the first day I gave a long presentation about Apache Camel, in a 90 minutes session.

After the presentation some of us went out for dinner, in a nice Spanish tappas restaurant, where we enjoyed the local cuisine.

On the left (front to back): Ignacio, Esteve, Adela
On the right (front to back): Jonathan, Claus, Yeradis.

Thanks to the BarcelonaJUG organizers for hosting a great event, and taking good care of their speakers.

On saturday we had a 4 hour workshop, where people bring their own laptop, and then we start riding the Camel, and make sure everyone get onboard. I must say the workshop really pays off, and I think this is something to consider doing more often.

It was not only Camel we learned about in the workshop. We also installed hawtio in the Tomcat that we have been using as container. It was great to see that everybody could easily install hawtio by just dropping the .war into webapps. And that people could then have fun with hawtio and try out its other plugins as well.

There was much interest in hawtio and we may in the future have another event focusing more on hawtio and also how you can customize/skin it, and as well how to build custom plugins, and what not.

At the end of the workshop we had about 20 minutes, and the audience was given a choice between doing some more Camel coding, or seeing a live demonstration of fabric8. To learn more about fabric8 then I suggest to check out some of the videos James Strachan has done recently.

I have upload my slides from the presentation to slideshare here. The slides for the workshop will follow up soon - just need to polish a few pages, and prepare some of the source code.

Apache Camel presentation and workshop in Barcelona

The Barcelona Java User Group have invited me to spread the words about Apache Camel. This time we are doing this over two days.

Barcelona JUG

The event takes place on friday 24th and saturday 25th January 2014. On friday I will introduce and present Apache Camel. And on saturday we have a workshop where you bring your laptop, and get hands on experience with riding the Camel.

The presentation and workshop will be in English - All I can say in Spanish is - Dos grande cervezas por favor. Though we would need that phrase friday evening where we go out for food and drinks.

You can find much more information about the event at the Barcelona JUG web site, where you also can register for the event. There is limited number of seats, so hurry up and reserve your seat.

Apache Camel Developer's Cookbook

Today I received my reviewer copy of the new Apache Camel Developer's Cookbook book which was recently published, and authored by Scott Cranton and Jakub Korab who are long term Camel riders

Fantastic book with over 100 recipes how to do stuff with Apache Camel

The book has a great looking Camel on the cover; Though we cannot see if the Camel has one or two humphs. But more importantly the book has over 400 pages, and more than 100 recipes how to do stuff with Camel. So its packed with great information and ready to use examples provided as unit tests in the accompanying source code. It's certainly a cookbook worth purchasing to be a great Camel rider.

To learn more about this book and what it covers I encourage you to read from the mouth itself by reading the announcement from Jakub on his blog.

Congratulations to Scott and Jakub for being published. 

Remember to buy a round of beers from the money you receive from your first batch of royalties ;)

CamelOne 2014 Call for Paper

For the last 3 years FuseSource/Red Hat hosted the CamelOne conferences. From this year onwards the CamelOne conference is now part of the DevNation conference.

DevNation 2014

The conference takes place in San Francisco in the famous Moscone center, co-hosted with Red Hat Summit.

If you have desire to talk at DevNation, then the call for paper is open until January 15th 2014, so hurry up and submit your proposals.

Andrew Rubinger, one of the organizers have blogged about the creation of the DevNation conference, which you can read here.

Hope to see you there in the famous city of San Francisco.