Maven2 Log4J and JMX dependencies

December 31, 2007December 31, 2007 Simon Kingaby Mavendependencies, jmx, log4j, Maven

Aarg! What a nightmare. I finally — fine, call me stupid — figured out where to/how to get the JMX dependencies for Log4J.
I am using Commons Logging, which in turn, likes to use Log4J. So, I added this to my Maven project file (pom.xml):
<dependency> <groupId>log4j</groupId> <artifactId>log4j</artifactId> <version>1.2.15</version> </dependency>
However, log4j has a dependency on jmx, which maven dutifully brings to my attention.

And this is where it gets interesting, the Maven repositories all have a pom for these but NOT the jar’s.
It turns out you need to download the jars from Sun’s Download site (which you have to register for). (To navigate there, go to http://www.sun.com/download, then search the download center for JMX, then select the Java Management Extensions Download Information, then select the JMX 1.2.1 Reference Implementation,then select the JMX RI 1.2.1 download. Whew!)

After downloading, you need to rename the jars from jmx*.jar to jmx*-1.2.1.jar. Then you can register them with Maven (I use Artifactory, which made this a lot easier.) Be sure to change the GroupId as follows:
com.sun.jdmk:jmxtools com.sun.jmx:jmxri

With the jars in the repository, the JMX dependencies now resolve properly.

31 thoughts on “Maven2 Log4J and JMX dependencies”

Glen says:

March 5, 2008 at 8:47 am

This solved my problem, thanks for taking the time to post this.

Reply
skingaby says:

March 5, 2008 at 10:50 am

You’re welcome. And suddenly, it was worth it.

Reply
Alex Polson says:

March 11, 2008 at 10:51 am

Kudos on this post. I ran into a similar problem and was getting really frustrated.

While the instructions above described two of the dependencies I was missing I was still having trouble downloading jms-1.1.jar as it looks like Sun is about to release a new product which supersedes it. I ended up just doing an explicit Google search for jms-1.1.jar, found it, installed it and now I’m up and running again.

Thanks again. 🙂

Reply

But one question is still unanswered: do we really need jmx or jms now to use log4j in any case? I belive not! So I gracefully exclude those dependencies in my master pom:

<dependency>
	<groupId>log4j</groupId>
	<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
	<version>1.2.15</version>
	<exclusions>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>javax.jms</groupId>
			<artifactId>jms</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
	</exclusions>
</dependency>

Erik Cornelisse says:

April 3, 2008 at 6:45 am

I agree with Mathias.

Those files are not required if your program doesn’t make use of JMS or JMX.

Excluding them as dependency is the best way to deal with this problem.
The dependency that Maven detects, are required for buidling the Log4J libraries.

Here a example of excluding all indirect dependencies for Log4J in your pom.xml file:

log4j
log4j
1.2.15
compile

com.sun.jdmk
jmxtools

com.sun.jmx
jmxri

javax.jms
jms

javax.mail
mail

javax.activation
activation

Be sure that you don’t need them !

Kind regards,

Reply
Erik Cornelisse says:

April 3, 2008 at 6:50 am

Excuse me, some how my paste action has failed.

The right content of the pom.xml file should be:

log4j
log4j
1.2.15
compile

com.sun.jdmk
jmxtools

com.sun.jmx
jmxri

javax.jms
jms

javax.mail
mail

javax.activation
activation

Reply
Mark Helmstetter says:

April 5, 2008 at 5:45 pm

I agree, excluding is the way to go. To exclude, enter the following in your pom.xml

log4j
log4j
1.2.15

com.sun.jmx
jmxri

com.sun.jdmk
jmxtools

javax.jms
jms

Reply

Sorry, I guess I should have realized that this blog is stripping tags. How about this:

<dependency>
	<groupId>log4j</groupId>
	<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
	<version>1.2.15</version>
	<exclusions>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
	</exclusions>
</dependency>

Log4J 1.2.15 and maven dependencies « DoTaL says:

May 6, 2008 at 9:30 am

[…] post expands on this post from One Man Went to Mow… to add the jms and mail […]

Reply
Sundar says:

June 4, 2008 at 9:49 am

Thx for the details. I got the Log4J working now. Finding out the JMS and JMX took time, thx to Google for showing them on mouse click.

Reply
Rolf Staflin says:

August 1, 2008 at 2:17 am

There is another easy way to get rid of the dependencies: Simply use the previous version of Log4j. Change the version number to 1.2.14 and you can cut out all the exclusions from your pom.xml!

Reply

Exclude it in your pom file if you do not need it, e.g.

<dependency>
	<groupId>log4j</groupId>
	<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
	<version>1.2.15</version>
	<exclusions>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
	</exclusions>
</dependency>

nikhil says:

August 18, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Excellent posts guys… but the question is… why in the world would the log4j depend on the jmxtools and jmxri files?

Reply
Anna Skawińska says:

September 9, 2008 at 3:52 am

Hi, thanks for featuring this topic, it got me stuck for a while, too. I’ve just come out with another solution which doesn’t require excluding or installing anything manually. The Maven2 repository on JBoss contains the needed artifacts, just add the following repository to your Maven2 settings and Maven will find those: http://repository.jboss.com/maven2

Reply
Ben Bruhl says:

October 13, 2008 at 12:30 pm

I also ran into this problem. I also dropped the version back to 1.2.14 and maven built fine.
Good tip from Rolf.

Reply
toniBlog » Mavenized says:

January 24, 2009 at 12:47 am

[…] sometimes, with the xml, with some weird repositories publishing strange versions, or just with Log4J for example, depending on libraries not available on any repository, but hey, Maven downloaded for […]

Reply
Spring Web Service’s with JAXB, Maven & Eclipse « Jamesbnuzzo’s Blog says:

April 14, 2009 at 7:17 am

[…] One Man went to Mow […]

Reply
Resolving log4j 1.2.15 dependency problems in Maven using exclusions » unitstep.net says:

May 18, 2009 at 10:44 am

[…] could download and install these artifacts to the local repository, if we really needed them. But in most cases, they’re not needed and thus you won’t […]

Reply
Jim Barritt says:

May 25, 2009 at 5:55 am

Hey,

I was just following the same problem. I found this link which might be of help:

http://www.nabble.com/newbie:-why-does-log4j-pull-down-all-sorts-of-files–td21821665.html

it mentions 2 repositories which may have the extra jars:
http://download.java.net/maven/2/
http://repository.jboss.org/maven2/

Also talks about using transitive=”false” which should stop it downloading all the other deps.

hope this is of use.

Jim

Reply
Phil says:

December 4, 2009 at 4:48 pm

Use 1.2.13 of log4j. These are new dependencies in 15.

Reply
migui says:

December 9, 2009 at 9:44 am

Thank you! I was also wasting the day with this stupid error!

Reply

<dependency>
	<groupId>log4j</groupId>
	<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
	<version>1.2.15</version>
	<exclusions>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
		<exclusion>
			<groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
			<artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
		</exclusion>
	</exclusions>
</dependency>

Jacobjob says:

February 16, 2010 at 5:41 am

Thanks Demian, that’s handy and it works. Just replaced the [ and ].

Reply
christian says:

February 16, 2010 at 12:37 pm

Thanks a lot. I saved a lot of time because of you. Thank you

Reply
David Hergert says:

August 25, 2010 at 12:16 pm

Now that Oracle has assimilated Sun, where are we supposed to get these JMX management extensions? Its impossible to find things on Oracle’s site now.

Reply
- David Hergert says:
  
  August 25, 2010 at 12:19 pm
  
  Found them:
  http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/core/mntr-mgmt/javamanagement/download.jsp
  
  Reply
Maven2 Log4J and JMX dependencies (via One Man went to Mow…) « Stracciafabrizio’s Weblog says:

October 13, 2010 at 1:31 pm

[…] leave a comment » Aarg! What a nightmare. I finally — fine, call me stupid — figured out where to/how to get the JMX dependencies for Log4J. I am using Commons Logging, which in turn, likes to use Log4J. So, I added this to my Maven project file (pom.xml): <dependency> <groupId>log4j</groupId> <artifactId>log4j</artifactId> <version>1.2.15</version> </dependency> However, log4j has a dependency on jmx, whi … Read More […]

Reply
aroth says:

July 3, 2011 at 9:52 pm

A better solution would be to get other people to start hosting the JAR from their own Maven repositories. Having to manually fetch any dependency from anywhere largely defeats the purpose of using Maven in the first place.

Reply
Log4J 1.2.15 and maven dependencies | Red Gradient says:

February 3, 2012 at 2:07 pm

[…] post expands on this post from One Man Went to Mow… to add the jms and mail […]

Reply
Johna294 says:

September 21, 2014 at 12:39 am

Spot on with this writeup, I actually believe this website needs a great deal more attention. Ill probably be returning to read through more, thanks for the info! dadcbedgaddk

Reply
Open Letter to Job Seekers in Information Technology | One Man went to Mow... says:

July 27, 2020 at 9:49 am

[…] Fifth, start a technical blog. As you learn a new skill, you will explore technologies and will probably have to “figure stuff out”. When you do, blog about it. I still get hits on one of the technical articles that I wrote years ago about a weird problem with Maven. […]

Reply