Version 5 Getting Started

Using ActiveMQ Classic 5 > Version 5 Getting Started

Introduction

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

Pre-Installation Requirements

Hardware:

  • 60 MB of free disk space for the ActiveMQ Classic binary distribution.
  • 200 MB of free disk space for the ActiveMQ Classic source or developer’s distributions.

Operating Systems:

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

Environment:

  • Java Developer Kit (JDK) 1.7.x or greater for deployment and 1.7.x (Java 7) for compiling/building.
  • The JAVA_HOME environment variable must be set to the directory where the JDK is installed, e.g., c:\Program Files\jdk.1.7.0_xx_xx.
  • Maven 3.0 or greater (required when installing source or developer’s releases).
  • JARs that will be used must be added to the classpath.

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. From a browser, navigate to activemq.apache.org/.
  2. Click the Download link in the navigation pane (the left pane).
  3. Select the latest distribution (for older releases, click the link to the archives).
    For a binary distribution, the filename will be similar to: activemq-x.x.x.zip.
  4. Extract the files from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice.
  5. Proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
  6. 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.

NOTE: ActiveMQ Classic requires Java 7 to run and to build

  1. From a browser, navigate to activemq.apache.org/.
  2. Click the Download link in the navigation pane (the left pane).
  3. Select the latest distribution (for older releases, click the link to the archives).
    For a source distribution, the filename will be similar to: activemq-x.x-src.zip.
  4. Extract ActiveMQ Classic from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice.
  5. Build ActiveMQ Classic using Maven 2.1 or greater and Java 1.7.

The recommended method of building ActiveMQ Classic is the following:

cd [activemq_install_dir]
mvn clean install

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

If the above build fails on some tests, type the following:

cd [activemq_install_dir]
mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip=true
  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. Proceed to the #Testing the Installation section.

Warning

If you are building ActiveMQ Classic 5.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.

NOTE: ActiveMQ Classic requires Java 7 to run and to build

  1. From a browser, navigate to activemq.apache.org/.
  2. Click the Download link in the navigation pane (the left pane).
  3. Click the Maven ActiveMQ Classic SNAPSHOT link.
  4. Select the version of ActiveMQ Classic to download
  5. Extract the files from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice.
  6. 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.
  7. 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 gzip file to the Unix machine, using either a browser or a tool, i.e., wget, scp, ftp, etc. for example: 
    \> wget http://activemq.apache.org/path/tofile/apache-activemq-5.8-tar.gz
  2. Extract the files from the gzip file into a directory of your choice. For example: 
    \> tar zxvf activemq-x.x.x.tar.gz
  3. If the activemq start-up script is not executable, change its permissions. The activemq script is located in the bin directory. For example: 
    \> cd [activemq_install_dir]/bin
\> chmod 755 activemq
  4. Proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
  5. Following start-up, go to the #Testing the Installation section.

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.

NOTE: ActiveMQ Classic requires Java 7 to run and to build

  1. From a browser, navigate to activemq.apache.org/.
  2. Click the Download link in the navigation pane (the left pane).
  3. Click the Maven ActiveMQ Classic SNAPSHOT link.
  4. Select the version of ActiveMQ Classic to download
    For a source distribution, the filename will be similar to: activemq-x.x-src.tar.gz.
  5. Extract the files from the ZIP file into a directory of your choice. For example: 
    tar zxvf activemq.x.x-src.tar.gz
  6. Build ActiveMQ Classic using Maven 3.0 or greater and Java 7:
    The preferred method of building ActiveMQ Classic is the following: 
    cd [activemq_install_dir]
mvn clean install

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

    export MAVEN_OPTS=-Xmx1024M

    If the above build fails on some tests, do the following:

    cd [activemq_install_dir]
mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip=true

    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.

  7. Proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
  8. Proceed to #Testing the Installation section.

Unix Developer’s Release

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

NOTE: ActiveMQ Classic requires Java 7 to run and to build

  1. From a browser, navigate to activemq.apache.org/.
  2. Click the #Download link in the navigation pane (the left pane).
  3. Click the Maven ActiveMQ Classic SNAPSHOT link.
  4. Select the version of ActiveMQ Classic to download
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. For a binary snapshot, proceed to the #Starting ActiveMQ Classic section of this document.
  8. If a source snapshot was downloaded perform steps 6 - 8 of the #Unix Source Installation procedure.
  9. Proceed to the #Testing the Installation section.

Starting ActiveMQ Classic

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

See also Starting ActiveMQ Classic with a different configuration file

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 (depending on ActiveMQ Classic version):

ActiveMQ Classic 5.10 onwards

bin\activemq start

`ActiveMQ Classic 5.9 or older**

bin\activemq

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:

cd [activemq_install_dir]

where activemq_install_dir is the directory in which ActiveMQ Classic was installed, e.g., /usr/local/activemq-5.x.
Then type:

bin/activemq start

OR

bin/activemq start > /tmp/smlog  2>&1 &;
Note: /tmp/smlog may be changed to another file name.

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.

Warning

Do NOT close the console or shell in which ActiveMQ Classic was started, as that will terminate ActiveMQ Classic (unless ActiveMQ Classic was started with nohup).

nohup bin/activemq > /tmp/smlog 2>&1 &

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

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:

INFO  ActiveMQ JMS Message Broker (ID:apple-s-Computer.local-51222-1140729837569-0:0) has started

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 -an|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]

where activemq_install_dir is the directory in which ActiveMQ Classic was installed, e.g., /usr/local/activemq-5.x.
Then type:

bin/activemq stop

Or you can do the following:

ps -ef|grep activemq
kill [PID]

where [PID] is the process id of the ActiveMQ Classic process.

Starting ActiveMQ Classic with a different configuration file

By default ActiveMQ Classic uses the conf/activemq.xml as the main configuration file when starting. If you want to use a different configuration file you can specify this as a parameter.

ActiveMQ Classic 5.8 or older

For example to use conf/activemq-demo.xml which includes the web demos, you do as follows:

bin/activemq console xbean:conf/activemq-demo.xml

To start Active in console mode and load the conf/activemq-demo.xml file. Yes you need the xbean: as prefix.

And to launch as a background process you can do:

bin/activemq start xbean:conf/activemq-demo.xml

ActiveMQ Classic 5.9 onwards

For example to use examples/conf/activemq-demo.xml which includes the web demos, you do as follows:

bin/activemq console xbean:examples/conf/activemq-demo.xml

To start Active in console mode and load the examples/conf/activemq-demo.xml file. Yes you need the xbean: as prefix.

And to launch as a background process you can do:

bin/activemq start xbean:examples/conf/activemq-demo.xml

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.

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