Management Guide - MXINFO File Format

The MXINFO file is contains information about how the object it describes can be managed. It includes functional information intended for the management application, and descriptive data to help guide the user.

An mxinfo file is created at design time. It can be generated automatically using xdoclet tags (described here) or by hand.

At runtime it is expected that the mxinfo file will be have the same name as the class it describes (e.g. FtpServer.class would be described by an FtpServer.mxinfo file), and be located in the same package as that class. At startup the mxinfo file is parsed and, in conjuntion with class introspection, is used to define the in-memory metadata for management of the target object.

Note that a target object is not restricted to having a single mxinfo file, although the specifics of how that works is dependant on the management component. Finally, its worth pointing out that an mxinfo file generated from interface can be applied to any class that implements the interface.

Since mxinfo files are somewhat confusing in the abstract, but straight forward in practice, the rest of this section describes an imaginary, yet somewhat plausible, mxinfo file.

        
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE mxinfo PUBLIC "-//PHOENIX/Mx Info DTD Version 1.0//EN"
                  "http://jakarta.apache.org/avalon/dtds/phoenix/mxinfo_1_0.dtd">

<mxinfo>

    <topic name="ftpServer" >

      <!-- attributes -->
      <attribute
        name="addressString"
        description="Address String"
        isWriteable="no"
        type="java.lang.String"
      />
      <attribute
        name="serverAddress"
        description="Server bind address."
        isWriteable="no"
        type="java.net.InetAddress"
      />

      <!-- operations -->
      <operation
        name="getDefaultRoot"
        description="Gets the default root"
        type="java.lang.String"
      >
      </operation>
      <operation
        name="getServerPort"
        description="Returns port that the server listens on"
        type="java.lang.String"
      >
        <param
          name="instance"
          description="no description"
          type="java.lang.Integer"
        />
      </operation>

    </topic>

    <proxy name="userManager" />

</mxinfo>