Hey John — your instinct is right: that parameter is the standard MXBean Map-to-TabularData mapping. A Map on an MXBean (here a String-to-String map) comes across JMX as a TabularData whose rows are CompositeData with two items literally named "key" and "value", and the table is indexed by "key". For setRecordingSettings the map is JFR setting-name to value, e.g. "jdk.ExecutionSample#enabled" maps to "true".
The catch — and the real answer to your question — is that a generic MBean console like the one in your screenshot (same with jconsole) can't build a TabularData from that text box. Those fields only take simple scalars; there's no string form the console will parse into a CompositeData/TabularData. So for this operation, through that UI specifically, you basically can't hand it the parameter. It's not a syntax you're missing — the console just doesn't construct open types.
What actually works, depending on what you've got:
- A few lines of JMX client code is the reliable route. Connect with a JMXConnector, build a TabularDataSupport from the operation's own TabularType (rows are CompositeDataSupport with "key"/"value"), then call invoke(). jshell or a quick Groovy script is enough — no full project needed.
- Jolokia/HawtIO, if that console happens to be Jolokia-based: its exec endpoint takes JSON and converts it into the open types, so a key/value map goes in as a JSON object instead of being hand-built.
- For JFR specifically, sidestep TabularData entirely. FlightRecorder has String-based operations the console can drive directly: setPredefinedConfiguration(id, "profile") (or "default") applies a built-in profile, and setConfiguration(id, ...) takes a .jfc profile as a plain XML string. If your real goal is "configure this recording," those are far easier than reconstructing the settings map. And outside JMX, jcmd with the JFR.* subcommands, the jfr tool, or -XX:StartFlightRecording do the same with no MBean wrangling.
So — what are you actually trying to do: configure a JFR recording (then I'd reach for setPredefinedConfiguration/setConfiguration or jcmd), or do you specifically need to drive arbitrary TabularData operations through a console? And is that console plain JMX-over-HTTP or Jolokia/HawtIO? That decides which path fits.
