How to Deploy and Use Arthas Tunnel for Real‑Time Java Diagnostics

Overview

Arthas Tunnel is an open‑source online diagnostic tool from Alibaba that provides a Dashboard, Thread view, Stack inspection, and Watch performance monitoring. It includes automatic service discovery (retrieving application IPs and ports) and permission control based on Spring Security with dynamic Nacos account binding.

Build the Project

Clone the repository and compile with Maven:

git clone https://github.com/shiyindaxiaojie/arthas.git
cd arthas
mvn package -T 4C

Running the Application

IDEA (local) startup

Execute mvn install in the project root (add -DskipTests to skip tests if desired).

Enter the tunnel-server directory and run mvn spring-boot:run or launch the ArthasTunnelApplication class. Successful startup shows the Spring Boot banner.

Enter the web-ui directory and run yarn run dev:tunnel or yarn run dev:ui. The console will output http://localhost:8000; open this URL in a browser.

Docker startup

Run the published Docker image:

docker run -p 8080:8080 --name=arthas-tunnel-server -d shiyindaxiaojie/arthas-tunnel-server

Deployment Options

FatJar deployment

Package a single executable JAR and run it:

mvn clean package
java -Dserver.port=8080 -jar target/arthas-tunnel-server.jar

Docker image build

Build a layered Docker image using Spring Boot’s support:

docker build -f Dockerfile-Tunnel -t arthas-tunnel-server:{tag} .

Helm deployment

Deploy to Kubernetes with Helm:

helm install arthas-tunnel-server ./helm
helm uninstall arthas-tunnel-server

Integration into Your Application

Add the starter dependency to your Maven project:

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.github.shiyindaxiaojie</groupId>
  <artifactId>eden-arthas-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
</dependency>

Enable Arthas in application.yml (disabled by default):

spring:
  arthas:
    enabled: false   # enable as needed

arthas:
  agent-id: ${spring.application.name}@${random.value}
  tunnel-server: ws://localhost:7777/ws   # Arthas server address
  session-timeout: 1800
  telnet-port: 0   # random port
  http-port: 0     # random port

Example user configuration for the tunnel server (YAML):

arthas:
  tunnel:
    users:
      - name: admin
        password: 123456
        roles: '*'
      - name: user
        password: 123456
        roles:
      - eden-gateway

Example Projects

Domain‑model‑oriented COLA architecture – eden-demo-cola (GitHub)

Data‑model‑oriented layered architecture – eden-demo-layer (GitHub)

Open‑Source Resources

GitHub repository: https://github.com/shiyindaxiaojie/arthas

Docker Hub image: https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/shiyindaxiaojie/arthas-tunnel-server

eden‑architect framework: https://github.com/shiyindaxiaojie/eden-architect

COLA demo: https://github.com/shiyindaxiaojie/eden-demo-cola

Layered demo: https://github.com/shiyindaxiaojie/eden-demo-layer