How does jconsole find MBeans without rmiregistry running?

[John]

Hi,

I have an application that I run 10 instances of. Each of which are
instrumented with MBeans. I really like how I can start jconsole and it
finds all the apps and the mbeans within them.

I need to build an app that automatically connects to the apps and
interacts with them via the MBeans interface. I see how to register
each instance via RMI, but I don't understand how jconsole can find
these apps without rmiregistry running.

Does anyone know how this works and what I can do to use the same
technique?

BTW, is the source to jconsole available?

Thanks,
John