Enabling a JMX Remote Lifecycle Listener in JIRA

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Symptoms

JIRA fails to start after enabling a JMX Remote Lifecycle Listener in Tomcat.

The following appears in the catalina.out:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester startElement SEVERE: Begin event threw exception java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.catalina.mbeans.JmxRemoteLifecycleListener at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:247) at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.ObjectCreateRule.begin(ObjectCreateRule.java:144) at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.startElement(Digester.java:1276) (...)

Cause

Tomcat is not recognizing the tomcat-catalina-jmx-remote.jar file

Resolution

  • Stop JIRA

  • Download the tomcat-catalina-jmx-remote.jar according to the Tomcat version you're running:

JIRA Version

Tomcat Version

5.2.x

7.0.29

5.1.x

6.0.36

5.0.x

6.0.32

4.4.x

6.0.32

  • Save the file under $JIRA_INST/lib

  • Start JIRA and check if you're able to retrieve information via JMX.

    Atlassian does not provide support for JMX-related questions, such as a client development or so.

Updated on April 24, 2025

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