Debugging Using Remote Debugging

Ahoy there, mateys! So, you’ve created a fantastic Spring Boot application, but it’s not behaving as expected. It’s time to put on our detective hats and go on a debugging adventure. In this article, we’ll be exploring how to debug Spring Boot applications remotely using a separate machine and IDE.

Debugging can be a daunting task, but don’t worry, we’re in this together. Remote debugging is particularly useful when you’re dealing with distributed systems or when you need to debug a production environment. With remote debugging, we can attach a debugger to a running process and examine its internal state.

Setting Up Remote Debugging

Before we can start remote debugging, we need to configure our Spring Boot application to enable debugging. We can do this by adding the following line to our application.properties file:

debug=true

Next, we need to start our Spring Boot application with remote debugging enabled. We can do this by adding the following JVM arguments:

-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=*:5005

These JVM arguments tell the JVM to enable remote debugging and listen on port 5005. The suspend=n argument tells the JVM not to wait for a debugger to attach before starting the application.

Attaching the Debugger

Now that our Spring Boot application is running with remote debugging enabled, we can attach our debugger to it. We’ll need to use a separate machine and IDE for debugging.

In our debugger, we’ll need to create a new remote debugging configuration. We’ll need to specify the host and port that our Spring Boot application is listening on. In this case, it’s the IP address of the machine running our Spring Boot application and port 5005.

Once our remote debugging configuration is set up, we can connect to our Spring Boot application by clicking on the debug button in our IDE. Our IDE will connect to the remote JVM and start debugging our Spring Boot application.

Conclusion

And there you have it, mateys! We’ve gone on a debugging adventure and learned how to debug Spring Boot applications remotely using a separate machine and IDE. Remember to enable debugging in your application.properties file and start your Spring Boot application with the appropriate JVM arguments. Don’t forget to set up your remote debugging configuration in your IDE and connect to your Spring Boot application. Happy debugging!