Getting started with Cassandra Development in Eclipse (BEWARE of jdk8_40_ea, NoClassDefFoundError: ExtendedPlatformComponent)

I finally got back around to getting my environment setup for Cassandra development.  I ran into one snag, and couple things have changed so I figured I would capture the experience here.

Fork and Build

First, fork and clone from here:
https://github.com/apache/cassandra

Then run,

$> ant generate-eclipse-files

Eclipse Setup & Run Configuration

Then from Eclipse,
File -> Import -> Existing Projects into Workspace...

Navigate to your cassandra folder, and import the project.

Now, configure the run with:

Run Configurations -> Java Application -> Right-Click -> New

Main class:
org.apache.cassandra.service.CassandraDaemon

Then use the following VM arguments:
-Dcassandra.config=file:///Users/bone/git/boneill42/cassandra/conf/cassandra.yaml -Dcassandra.storagedir=/tmp/cassandra -Dcassandra-foreground=yes

The gotcha: Make sure you are running jdk8_40 and NOT jdk8_40_ea!!!

If you are still running early access (_ea), you may see:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: sun/management/ExtendedPlatformComponent

Logging

Next, it's useful to configure logging.  Cassandra changed from log4j to logback.  You can find the logback configuration in test/conf (logback-test.xml).

If you want to see DEBUG and/or INFO messages, edit this file and change the STDOUT element to:

  <appender name="STDOUT" target="System.out" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">

...

      <level>INFO</level>

...

  </appender>

After that, you are good to go.  Click run, and you should have a live Cassandra in Eclipse