Getting Started with ActiveMQ Classic

Introduction

This document describes how to install and configure ActiveMQ Classic 5.x for both Unix and Windows’ platforms.

Document Organization

The Getting Started Guide for ActiveMQ Classic 5.x document contains the following sections:

Pre-Installation Requirements

Hardware:

  • ~ 60 MB of free disk space for the ActiveMQ Classic 5.x binary distribution.
    (you need additional disk space for storing persistent messages to disk)
  • ~ 300 MB of free disk space for the ActiveMQ Classic 5.x source or developer’s distributions.

`Operating Systems:**

  • Windows: Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows 7.
  • Unix: Ubuntu Linux, Powerdog Linux, MacOS, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, or any Unix platform that supports Java.

Environment:

  • Java Runtime Environment (JRE)  JRE 1.8 or greater (1.7 for version <=5.15.0, 1.6 for version <=5.10.0)
    (a JDK is required if you plan to recompile source code)
  • The JAVA_HOME environment variable must be set to the directory where the JRE is installed
    (Unix: the binary “java” has to be resolvable by the PATH variable; execute “which java” to verify)
  • Maven 3.0.0 build system
    (only if you plan to recompile source code)
  • JARs that will be used must be added to the classpath.
    (only if you plan to recompile source code)

Installation Procedure for Windows

This section of the Getting Started Guide explains how to install binary and source distributions of ActiveMQ Classic on a Windows system.

Windows Binary Installation

This procedure explains how to download and install the binary distribution on a Windows system.

  1. Download the latest release
    (see Download -> “The latest stable release” -> “apache-activemq-x.x.x-bin.zip”)
  2. Extract the files from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice.
  3. Proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
  4. Following start-up, go to the #Testing the Installation section of this document.

Windows Source Installation

This procedure explains how to download and install the source distribution on a Windows system.

  1. Download the latest release
    (see Download -> “The latest stable release” -> “apache-activemq-x.x.x-source-release.zip”)
  2. Extract ActiveMQ Classic from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice.
  3. The recommended method of building ActiveMQ Classic is the following: 
    REM add "-Dmaven.test.skip=true" if tests are failing on your system (should not happen)
mvn clean install

    where [activemq_install_dir] is the directory in which ActiveMQ Classic was installed.

  4. If you prefer to use an IDE, then you can auto-generate the IDE’s project file using maven plugins: 
    mvn eclipse:eclipse

    or

    mvn idea:idea

    Feel free to use any other applicable IDE. Please refer to the plugin reference for more details.

  5. Start ActiveMQ Classic from the target directory, for example: 
    cd [activemq_install_dir]\assembly\target
unzip activemq-x.x-SNAPSHOT.zip
cd activemq-x.x-SNAPSHOT
bin\activemq

    NOTE: Working directories get created relative to the current directory. To create the working directories in the proper place, ActiveMQ Classic must be launched from its home/installation directory.

  6. Proceed to the #Testing the Installation section.

    Warning

    If you are building ActiveMQ Classic 4.x under Windows using Cygwin there is a path name length limitation. If the path name length is exceeded, you may see build errors. To correct this, move the ActiveMQ Classic source directory higher in the file system tree, e.g., /cygdrive/c/d/sm.

Windows Developer’s Release

This procedure explains how to download and install the latest developer’s snapshot.

  1. Open the release archive: https://repository.apache.org/content/repositories/snapshots/org/apache/activemq/apache-activemq/
    (open one of the SNAPSHOT directories)
  2. Select the version of ActiveMQ Classic to download (if necessary, scroll down to see the ActiveMQ Classic snapshots).
  3. Extract the files from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice.
  4. If a binary snapshot was downloaded, proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
    If a source snapshot was downloaded, perform step 6 and step 7 of the #Windows Source Installation procedure.
  5. Following start-up, proceed to the #Testing the Installation section.

Installation Procedure for Unix

Unix Binary Installation

This procedure explains how to download and install the binary distribution on a Unix system.
NOTE: There are several alternative ways to perform this type of installation.

  1. Download the activemq zipped tarball file to the Unix machine, using either a browser or a tool, i.e., wget, scp, ftp, etc. for example:
    (see Download -> “The latest stable release”) 
    wget http://activemq.apache.org/path/tofile/apache-activemq-x.x.x-bin.tar.gz
  2. Extract the files from the zipped tarball into a directory of your choice. For example: 
    cd [activemq_install_dir]
tar zxvf activemq-x.x.x-bin.tar.gz

  3. Proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.

  4. Following start-up, go to the #Testing the Installation section.

Using Homebrew installer on OSX

If you use OSX as your platform, you can use Homebrew package manager to easily install Apache ActiveMQ Classic.

  1. After installing Homebrew package manager successfully, just run 
    $ brew install apache-activemq

    You can expect the following output:

    ==\> Downloading http://www.gossipcheck.com/mirrors/apache/activemq/apache-activemq/x.x.x/apache-activemq-x.x.x-bin.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==\> Caveats
Software was installed to:
  /usr/local/Cellar/apache-activemq/x.x.x/libexec
==\> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/apache-activemq/x.x.x: 406 files, 35M, built in 2 seconds

ActiveMQ Classic will be installed in /usr/local/Cellar/apache-activemq/x.x.x/ directory (where x.x.x denotes the actual version being installed).

Now you can proceed to #Starting ActiveMQ Classic and #Testing the Installation sections.

Unix Source Installation

This procedure explains how to download and install the source distribution on a Unix system. This procedure assumes the Unix machine has a browser. Please see the previous #Unix Binary Installation section for details on how to install ActiveMQ Classic without a browser.

  1. Download the latest source release
    (see Download -> “The latest stable release” -> “activemq-parent-x.x.x-source-release.zip”)
  2. Extract the files from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice. For example: 
    tar zxvf activemq.x.x-src.tar.gz
  3. Build ActiveMQ Classic using Maven:
    The preferred method of building ActiveMQ Classic is the following: 
    cd [activemq_install_dir]
mvn clean install # add "-Dmaven.test.skip=true" if tests are failing on your system (should not happen)

    If Maven crashes with a java.lang.OutOfMemoryError, you you need to do this first (assuming a Bourne-like shell):

    export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xmx512M"

    If you prefer to use an IDE then you can auto-generate the IDE’s project file using maven plugins:

    mvn eclipse:eclipse

    or

    mvn idea:idea

    Feel free to use any other applicable IDE. Please refer to the plugin reference for more details.
    NOTE: Working directories get created relative to the current directory. To create working directories in the proper place, ActiveMQ Classic must be launched from its home/installation directory.

  4. Proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
  5. Proceed to #Testing the Installation section.

Unix Developer’s Release

This procedure explains how to download and install the latest developer’s snapshot.

  1. Open the release archive: https://repository.apache.org/content/repositories/snapshots/org/apache/activemq/apache-activemq/
    (open one of the SNAPSHOT directories)
  2. Select the version of ActiveMQ Classic to download (you may have to scroll down to see the ActiveMQ Classic snapshots).
    The filename will be similar to: activemq-x.x.x-tar.gz.
  3. Extract the files from the gzip file into a directory of your choice. For example:
    For a binary developer’s snapshot: 
    tar zxvf activemq-x.x.x.tar.gz

    For a source developer’s snapshot:

    tar zxvf activemq-x.x.x-src.tar.gz
  4. If a binary snapshot was downloaded, to make it executable, the activemq script may need its permissions changed: 
    cd [activemq_install_dir]/bin
chmod 755 activemq
  5. For a binary snapshot, proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
  6. If a source snapshot was downloaded perform steps 6 - 8 of the #Unix Source Installation procedure.
  7. Proceed to the #Testing the Installation section.

Starting ActiveMQ Classic

There now follows instructions on how to run the ActiveMQ Classic Message Broker.

On Windows:

From a console window, change to the installation directory and run activemq:

cd [activemq_install_dir]

where [activemq_install_dir] is the directory in which ActiveMQ Classic was installed, e.g., c:\Program Files\ActiveMQ-5.x.
Then type:

bin\activemq start

`NOTE:** Working directories get created relative to the current directory. To create working directories in the proper place, ActiveMQ Classic must be launched from its home/installation directory.

On Unix:

From a command shell, change to the installation directory and run activemq as a foregroud process:

cd [activemq_install_dir]/bin
./activemq console

From a command shell, change to the installation directory and run activemq as a daemon process:

cd [activemq_install_dir]/bin
./activemq start

More help

For other ways of running the broker see Here. For example you can run an embedded broker inside your JMS Connection to avoid starting a separate process.

Testing the Installation

Using the administrative interface

  • Open the administrative interface
  • Navigate to “Queues”
  • Add a queue name and click create
  • Send test message by klicking on “Send to”

Logfile and console output

If ActiveMQ Classic is up and running without problems, the Window’s console window or the Unix command shell will display information similar to the following log line (see stdout output or “[activemq_install_dir]/data/activemq.log”):

Apache ctiveMQ 5.11.1 (localhost, ID:ntbk11111-50816-1428933306116-0:1) started | org.apache.activemq.broker.BrokerService | main

Listen port

ActiveMQ Classic’s default port is 61616. From another window run netstat and search for port 61616.

From a Windows console, type:

netstat -an|find "61616"

OR

From a Unix command shell, type:

netstat -nl|grep 61616

Monitoring ActiveMQ Classic

You can monitor ActiveMQ Classic using the Web Console by pointing your browser at http://localhost:8161/admin.

From ActiveMQ Classic 5.8 onwards the web apps is secured out of the box.
The default username and password is admin/admin. You can configure this in the conf/jetty-real.properties file.

Or you can use the JMX support to view the running state of ActiveMQ Classic.

For more information see the file docs/WebConsole-README.txt in the distribution.

Stopping ActiveMQ Classic

For both Windows and Unix installations, terminate ActiveMQ Classic by typing “CTRL-C” in the console or command shell in which it is running.

If ActiveMQ Classic was started in the background on Unix, the process can be killed, with the following:

cd [activemq_install_dir]/bin
./activemq stop

Configuring ActiveMQ Classic

The ActiveMQ Classic broker should now run. You can configure the broker by specifying an Xml Configuration file as a parameter to the activemq command. An alternative is to use the Broker Configuration URI to configure things on the command line in a concise format (though the configuration options are not as extensive as if you use Java or XML code). You can also

Also see Configuring Transports to see how you can configure the various connection, transport and broker options using the connection URL in the ActiveMQConnectionFactory.

See the Initial Configuration for details of which jars you need to add to your classpath to start using ActiveMQ Classic in your Java code

If you want to use JNDI to connect to your JMS provider then please view the JNDI Support. If you are a Spring user you should read about Spring Support

After the installation, ActiveMQ Classic is running with a basic configuration. For details on configuring options, please see refer to the Configuration section.

Additional Resources

If you are new to using ActiveMQ Classic, running the Web Samples or the Examples is a good next step to learn more about ActiveMQ Classic.

The commercial providers listed on the issues page may also have additional documentation, examples, tutorials, etc… that can help you get started.

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