Installing Lambda Probe in Blackboard Environment

As stated on their website, Lambda Probe is the ultimate tool for monitoring and management of Apache Tomcat instance in real time. Lambda Probe will help you to visualise real time information about Apache Tomcat instance via easy to use and friendly web interface. For more information please visit the overview section.

It is a little tricky to install in Blackboard but it will be worth it when it's there as you can really see what's happening with memory and the JVM.  There is a series of things that have to be done to install Lambda Probe (version 1.7b as of writing) into the Blackboard Learning System environment.  Before I continue with this, there are some warnings: 

1. This is totally not supported by Blackboard Inc and you are doing this at your own risk.
2. I STRONGLY suggest that you install this on a test server to make sure you have the installation done correctly.  It won't start if it is not installed properly.
   
3. It could cause performance degradation (but I haven't seen any).
4. Upgrades/hotfixes and running PushConfigUpdates will make this not work as some of the files you have to edit are overwritten when that is run.  Keep the instructions that are in the Zip file somewhere safe.
5. In an earlier version that I ran, I clicked on "Estimate the Session Size" and the server slowly came to it's knees so be careful what you do. 
   
6. You can probably uninstall parts of Blackboard with it.  I didn't try so I don't really know but I'm certain that you don't want to be the one to try it.  Watch what you do!
   

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let the installing begin

 The instructions I have are for Solaris.  I would imagine it would be almost identical for Linux and probably similar in Windows with slightly different directory syntax.  It's just another web application as many pieces of Blackboard are so once installed, s system restart is required.

The first thing you have to do is download the LambdaProbe Zip file here

There is a list of instructions in the zip file in the README-PROBE.TXT file that will probably be enough information for you to get by in a Unix environment.  This was originally installed on 7.0 but will also work with 7.1.  I am fairly certain I tried it on 7.2 also.

Read the instructions fully first.  Follow the instructions carefully and in order. The key is to unzip this file into the /usr/local/blackboard directory. It will create directories and place files where they should go and the instructions have you customize existing files that exist in your current installation. 

Note:  As files are not all put in existing directories, please make sure that you add /webapps/probe to your config/client-dirs.txt file or this will be deleted during the upgrade.  Have a look at Blackboard KB Article 181-2758 on http://behind.blackboard.com if you are not familiar with this file (it may not exist on your system).

Once the server is restarted after the instructions are followed, you are all set to go.

If you have any questions, please place a comment here.  If you got it working, please place a comment here so I know who has it. 

Posted at Thursday Mar 08, 2007