MBean Descriptor How To
Introduction
Tomcat 5 uses JMX MBeans as the technology for implementing manageability of Tomcat.
The descriptions of JMX MBeans for Catalina are in the org.apache.catalina.mbeans.mbeans-descriptor.xml file.
You will need to add MBean descriptions for your custom components in order to avoid a "ManagedBean is not found" exception.
Including your own mbean-descriptor files
You may configure custom components (e.g. Valves/Realms) by including your own mbean-descriptor file(s), and setting the "descriptors" attribute to point to a ';' separated list of paths (in the ClassLoader sense) of files to add to the default list under ServerLifecycleListener definition in server.xml.
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.ServerLifecycleListener" debug="0" descriptors="/com/myfirm/mypackage/mbean-descriptor.xml"/>
Adding MBean description to Catalina's mbean-descriptors.xml
You may also add MBean descriptions for custom components in org.apache.catalina.mbeans.mbeans-descriptor.xml file.
<mbean name="LDAPRealm" className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.ClassNameMBean" description="Custom LDAPRealm" domain="Catalina" group="Realm" type="com.myfirm.mypackage.LDAPRealm"> <attribute name="className" description="Fully qualified class name of the managed object" type="java.lang.String" writeable="false"/> <attribute name="debug" description="The debugging detail level for this component" type="int"/> . . . </mbean>