Eclipse plug-in for Workstation 6.0 beta 3
Workstation 6.0 beta 3 has now been released. Tony D'Souza talks about developing the new Eclipse plug-in that allows developers to debug code on a remote machine from the comfort of their own local IDE. Still think virtualization is just for running Windows on Linux?
Link: quikchange: Making remote debugging easier to use.
Shortly after joining VMware, I took on the challenge of making it easier for software developers to debug code running in a production environment where they don't have all the tools normally available to them during development. Traditionally, the only way to accomplish this has been through the use of remote debugging. However, while remote debugging can be extremely useful in certain situations, getting it to work is sufficiently cumbersome that it has remained the domain of the truly desperate. There are two parts to the process: running the code in debug mode on the production machine and then attaching a debugger on the development machine to the code running on the production machine. ...
When activated, the plugin powers on the selected VM if necessary, shares the project folder containing the bytecode with the guest OS, finds an available dynamic port to use for remote debugging, looks for a JVM on the guest in the most likely locations until it find one, executes the application in debug mode and finally attaches the Eclipse visual debugger to the previously determined port on the VM. When the application is terminated, the plugin removes the shared folder so as not to leave a mess.
Posted by VMTN on February 9, 2007 in VMware Workstation
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That is intense. Can you give me an example of cases where this plugin has proved useful?
What comes to mind is having an array of OSes and being able to execute some java code on each of them in turn without having to copy the code over to each one, but I'd like to hear what scenarios you consider the plugin most useful for.
Posted by: Nate | March 21, 2007 at 10:54 PM
Does this work alongside the CDT plug-in for Eclipse?
Posted by: Mat Booth | March 22, 2007 at 09:17 AM
Nate: that is certainly one of the scenarios we envisioned. Others include easily attaching to Java code running within an appserver (like JBoss, WebLogic or WebSphere) that has been started in remote debug mode or debugging a problem that only manifests itself on a particular environment that is different from the one on which the software is being developed.
Mat: not yet but we're certainly investigating that possibility; would you be interested in giving us some initial feedback on the design of such an enhancement?
Posted by: Tony | March 22, 2007 at 10:32 AM
Does this plugin only work for debugging Java code, or does it extend to other languages handled by various Eclipse distributions?
Posted by: Don Box | November 21, 2007 at 10:29 PM
Don: Your question is similar to Mat's. The answer is that the current plugin only supports Java but we've received a fair bit of feedback indicating interest in C and C++ and have been taking that into account in our ongoing development efforts, although I can't make any promises.
Posted by: Tony | November 22, 2007 at 07:36 AM