VirtualMachine.attach(pid) fails with java.io.IOException: Can not attach to current VM

After going through this discussion, I'm led to believe the option to attach to the same VM, by default has been disabled in OpenJDK11.

I'm trying to upgrade a java agent to OpenJDK11, during the test cases when VirtualMachine.attach(pid) is called I see it failing with below error. What is the correct way to deal with this situation?

Complete stack trace:

java.io.IOException: Can not attach to current VM

at jdk.attach/sun.tools.attach.HotSpotVirtualMachine.<init>(HotSpotVirtualMachine.java:75)
at jdk.attach/sun.tools.attach.VirtualMachineImpl.<init>(VirtualMachineImpl.java:48)
at jdk.attach/sun.tools.attach.AttachProviderImpl.attachVirtualMachine(AttachProviderImpl.java:69)
at jdk.attach/com.sun.tools.attach.VirtualMachine.attach(VirtualMachine.java:207)
at org.kantega.notsoserial.WithAgentIT.attachAgent(WithAgentIT.java:76)
at org.kantega.notsoserial.WithAgentIT.attackShouldBePreventedWithAgent(WithAgentIT.java:47)
at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:566)
at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:50)
at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:12)
at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:47)
at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.InvokeMethod.evaluate(InvokeMethod.java:17)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runLeaf(ParentRunner.java:325)
at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:78)
at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:57)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:290)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:71)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:288)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:58)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:268)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:363)
at org.junit.runner.JUnitCore.run(JUnitCore.java:137)
at com.intellij.junit4.JUnit4IdeaTestRunner.startRunnerWithArgs(JUnit4IdeaTestRunner.java:68)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.IdeaTestRunner$Repeater.startRunnerWithArgs(IdeaTestRunner.java:47)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.JUnitStarter.prepareStreamsAndStart(JUnitStarter.java:242)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.JUnitStarter.main(JUnitStarter.java:70)

Solution

I'm not sure if this would help everyone, but in my case, it was a test case that tested whether the agent attaches to the JDK correctly(it won't be a self attach when the agent actually attaches to a JDK, i.e., actual runtime not a testcase).

Based on the suggestion by @Holger, in the comments, I modified my maven-failsafe-plugin to allow self attach.

        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.22.2</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>integration-test</goal>
                        <goal>verify</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <argLine>-Djdk.attach.allowAttachSelf=true</argLine>
                        <forkMode>once</forkMode>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>