Azure Websites - Increase Java / Tomcat heap size?

I have been trying to increase the heap size within my Azure website instance without any luck.. I have built a web.config file per some recommendations and put it in the /site/wwwroot folder but it doesn't seem to be overriding the default. For reference, my web.config looks like;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<handlers>
<add name="httppPlatformHandler" path="*" verb="*" modules="httpPlatformHandler" resourceType="Unspecified" />
</handlers>

<httpPlatform processPath="%programfiles(x86)%apache-tomcat-7.0.50binstartup.bat">
<environmentVariables>
<environmentVariable name="CATALINA_HOME" value="%programfiles(x86)%apache-tomcat-7.0.50"/>
<environmentVariable name="JAVA_OPTS" value="-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Xms128m -Xmx512m"/>
<environmentVariable name="CATALINA_OPTS" value="-Dport.http=%HTTP_PLATFORM_PORT%"/>
</environmentVariables>
</httpPlatform>
</system.webServer>


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated by both myself and I'm sure others who are trying to do the same thing as well.

Thank you!

4 Answers
4

You have two options:

My preferred way (Removes dependency on specific minor version of Tomcat 7):

processPath="%AZURE_TOMCAT7_HOME%binstartup.bat"


The other way (here programfiles points to the Program Files (x86) folder:

programfiles

Program Files (x86)

processPath="%programfiles%apache-tomcat-7.0.50binstartup.bat"


Remove those settings in “JAVA_OPTS” and add them into “CATALINA_OPTS” as below, because java heap size should go under CATALINA_OPTS:

<httpPlatform processPath="%AZURE_TOMCAT85_HOME%binstartup.bat">
<environmentVariables>
<environmentVariable name="CATALINA_OPTS" value="-Dport.http=%HTTP_PLATFORM_PORT% -Xms512m -Xmx2048m" />
<environmentVariable name="CATALINA_HOME" value="%AZURE_TOMCAT85_HOME%" />
</environmentVariables>
</httpPlatform>


Abdenaceur's solution above is the "Microsoft" answer however it did not work for us. Instead of this:

<environmentVariable name="CATALINA_OPTS" value="-Dport.http=%HTTP_PLATFORM_PORT% -Xms512m -Xmx2048m" />


what worked for us was this:

<httpPlatform processPath="%JAVA_HOME%binjava.exe" arguments="-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Dspring.profiles.active=%spring.profiles.active% -Dserver.port=%HTTP_PLATFORM_PORT% -Xms512m -Xmx2048m -jar &quot;%HOME%sitewwwrootBLA-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar&quot;">
</httpPlatform>


So the complete file is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<handlers>
<add name="httpPlatformHandler" path="*" verb="*" modules="httpPlatformHandler" resourceType="Unspecified" />
</handlers>
<httpPlatform processPath="%JAVA_HOME%binjava.exe" arguments="-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -Dspring.profiles.active=%spring.profiles.active% -Dserver.port=%HTTP_PLATFORM_PORT% -Xms512m -Xmx2048m -jar &quot;%HOME%sitewwwrootBLAA_Api-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar&quot;">
</httpPlatform>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>


What worked for us is adding the CATALINA_OPTS at "Application settings" in the section "Application settings".

CATALINA_OPTS

E.g. set it to -Xmx20m and reboot your application and you will likely get an OutOfMemory Error instantly because 20MB is not enough.
If that worked you can obviously adjust -Xmx to your needs and reboot again.

-Xmx20m

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