Linux/OpenJDK/IcedTea : debugging browser-hosted applet

Question

Did anyone ever pull that trick off?

I am trying to do something like

$ ICEDTEAPLUGIN_DEBUG=true; firefox

but nothing listens on port 8787. The docs say this should work for me.

Please don't suggest switching from OpenJDK to Oracle JVM: this is okay but off the topic.

I am not sure that correct plugin is there, but it should be so, as I'd done some tracing setup and see proper messages in

~/.icedtea/logs

My current jre/jdk packages are listed below (Ubuntu Maverick).

$ dpkg -l "*jdk*" "*jre*" "*icedtea*"
un  cacao-oj6-jre                        <none>                               (no description available)
ii  default-jdk                          1:1.6-40ubuntu1                      Standard Java or Java compatible Development Kit
ii  default-jre                          1:1.6-40ubuntu1                      Standard Java or Java compatible Runtime
ii  default-jre-headless                 1:1.6-40ubuntu1                      Standard Java or Java compatible Runtime (headless)
ii  gcj-4.5-jre-lib                      4.5.2-8ubuntu1                       Java runtime library for use with gcj (jar files)
un  gcj-jre                              <none>                               (no description available)
ii  icedtea-6-jre-cacao                  6b22-1.10.2-0ubuntu1~11.04.1         Alternative JVM for OpenJDK, using Cacao
ii  icedtea-6-jre-jamvm                  6b22-1.10.2-0ubuntu1~11.04.1         Alternative JVM for OpenJDK, using JamVM
un  icedtea-gcjwebplugin                 <none>                               (no description available)
ii  icedtea-netx                         1.1.1-0ubuntu1~11.04.1               NetX - implementation of the Java Network Launching Protocol (JNLP)
ii  icedtea-plugin                       1.1.1-0ubuntu1~11.04.1               web browser plugin based on OpenJDK and IcedTea to execute Java applets
un  icedtea6-jre-cacao                   <none>                               (no description available)
ii  icedtea6-plugin                      6b21.1.1-0ubuntu1~11.04.1            web browser plugin to execute Java applets (dependency package)
un  jre                                  <none>                               (no description available)
un  openjdk-6-dbg                        <none>                               (no description available)
un  openjdk-6-demo                       <none>                               (no description available)
un  openjdk-6-doc                        <none>                               (no description available)
ii  openjdk-6-jdk                        6b22-1.10.2-0ubuntu1~11.04.1         OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK)
ii  openjdk-6-jre                        6b22-1.10.2-0ubuntu1~11.04.1         OpenJDK Java runtime, using Hotspot JIT
ii  openjdk-6-jre-headless               6b22-1.10.2-0ubuntu1~11.04.1         OpenJDK Java runtime, using Hotspot JIT (headless)
ii  openjdk-6-jre-lib                    6b22-1.10.2-0ubuntu1~11.04.1         OpenJDK Java runtime (architecture independent libraries)
un  openjdk-6-jre-zero                   <none>                               (no description available)
ii  openjdk-6-source                     6b22-1.10.2-0ubuntu1~11.04.1         OpenJDK Development Kit (JDK) source files
un  sun-java5-jre                        <none>                               (no description available)
un  sun-java6-jdk                        <none>                               (no description available)
un  sun-java6-jre                        <none>                               (no description available)

Answer 1

Your code isn't setting the environment variable properly.

ICEDTEAPLUGIN_DEBUG=true; firefox

You have a semicolon, so you're setting the environment variable in the current shell -- in particular this will not pass the ICEDTEAPLUGIN_DEBUG variable to the firefox subprocess. What you actually want is this:

ICEDTEAPLUGIN_DEBUG=true firefox