how to change the name of a Java application process?

Question

When executing a Java application the process name given to it is usually java.exe or javaw.exe. But how can I make it be called by the name of my

Answer 1

You can do this with an LD_PRELOAD shim: https://github.com/airlift/procname

The shim simply calls the Linux-specific prctl() when the process starts:

static void __attribute__ ((constructor)) procname_init()
{
   prctl(PR_SET_NAME, "myname");
}

The call has to happen on the main thread, so it isn't possible to do this from Java or even with a JVMTI agent, since those happen on a different thread.