This chapter is really unnecessary, now that Java 1.5 and newer come with a basic JMX implementation.

Note that a full JMX implementation only requires Instrumentation, Agent and Distributed Services levels, and some JMX implementations, most notably Sun's RI, distribute the Distributed Services part separately (Sun call's that part the JMX Remote API RI).

If you use another JMX implementation, you will have to modify your CLASSPATH to include one or more jar files from the JMX distribution. The commands in this document will work exactly as given only if you are using Java JDK 1.5 or greater.

If you are going to do distributed JMX with a JMXConnector, then I advise you to avoid Java 1.3. I hear that the problems with remote JMX on 1.3 are being resolved, but I won't be spending my time working around the remaining problems. (This doesn't apply to remote administration via Adaptors, only with Connectors).