How do I attach VisualVM to a simple Java process running in a Docker container

Question

Actually I wanted a solution working for JEE containers, specifically for Glassfish, but after I tried many combinations of settings and did not succeed, I reduced the setup

Answer 1

As answered by Anthony. I had to use the -Djava.rmi.server.hostname java option on my Windows machine.

Just be sure not to use the CMD in JSON format in your Dockerfile as this doesn't support shell expansion.

Dockerfile example:

FROM java:8
COPY . /usr/src/myapp
WORKDIR /usr/src/myapp
RUN javac Main.java
#Do not use CMD in JSON format here because shell expansion doesn't work in JSON format
#Shell expansion is needed for the ${HOST} variable.
CMD java -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote=true \
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.rmi.port=9010 \
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9010 \
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false \
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false \
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.local.only=false \
-Djava.rmi.server.hostname=${HOST} \
Main