Well after I did a little research, it would appear that Peter’s comment was correct. Because the JVM processes were launched by another user (the NETWORK SERVICE account because they were being started by a Windows service) they didn’t show up in jvisualvm.
Workaround
Since I have access to the application configuration, I have found the following workaround, which involves explicitly enabling unsecured JMX for the target JVM:
-
Add the following JVM parameters:
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=3333 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -
Add the remote process to jvisualvm using JMX by click File -> Add JMX Connection. You can connect to the process using port 3333. Obviously you can change the port if you want.
Link to article explaining this in a little more detail: http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/visualvm/jmx_connections.html
Notes
- It’s probably not a good idea to keep the JVM settings permanently, as they would allow anyone to connect to the JVM via JMX.
- You can also add authentication to the JMX JVM parameters if you want to.