Apache ActiveMQ

Apache ActiveMQ is the most popular and powerful open source Enterprise Messaging andIntegration Patterns provider.

Apache ActiveMQ is fast, supports many Cross Language Clients and Protocols, comes with easy to use Enterprise Integration Patterns and many advanced features while fully supporting JMS 1.1and J2EE 1.4. Apache ActiveMQ is released under the Apache 2.0 License

Grab yourself a Download, try our Getting Started Guide, surf our FAQ or start Contributing and join us on our Discussion Forums.

Features

• Supports a variety of Cross Language Clients and Protocols from Java, C, C++, C#, Ruby, Perl, Python, PHP
  • OpenWire for high performance clients in Java, C, C++, C#
  • Stomp support so that clients can be written easily in C, Ruby, Perl, Python, PHP, ActionScript/Flash, Smalltalk to talk to ActiveMQ as well as any other popular Message Broker
• full support for the Enterprise Integration Patterns both in the JMS client and the Message Broker
• Supports many advanced features such as Message Groups, Virtual Destinations, Wildcards and Composite Destinations
• Fully supports JMS 1.1 and J2EE 1.4 with support for transient, persistent, transactional and XA messaging
• Spring Support so that ActiveMQ can be easily embedded into Spring applications and configured using Spring's XML configuration mechanism
• Tested inside popular J2EE servers such as Geronimo, JBoss 4, GlassFish and WebLogic
  • Includes JCA 1.5 resource adaptors for inbound & outbound messaging so that ActiveMQ should auto-deploy in any J2EE 1.4 compliant server
• Supports pluggable transport protocols such as in-VM, TCP, SSL, NIO, UDP, multicast, JGroups and JXTA transports
• Supports very fast persistence using JDBC along with a high performance journal
• Designed for high performance clustering, client-server, peer based communication
• REST API to provide technology agnostic and language neutral web based API to messaging
• Ajax to support web streaming support to web browsers using pure DHTML, allowing web browsers to be part of the messaging fabric
• CXF and Axis Support so that ActiveMQ can be easily dropped into either of these web service stacks to provide reliable messaging
• Can be used as an in memory JMS provider, ideal for unit testing JMS

Starting ActiveMQ

There now follows instructions on how to run the ActiveMQ 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 was installed, e.g., c:\Program Files\ActiveMQ-4.x.
Then type:

bin\activemq

NOTE: Working directories get created relative to the current directory. To create working directories in the proper place, ActiveMQ 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 was installed, e.g., /usr/local/activemq-4.x.
Then type:

bin/activemq  OR  bin/activemq > /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 must be launched from its home/installation directory.

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 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'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

There are various ways to monitor ActiveMQ. If you are on version 4.2 or later of ActiveMQ you can then monitor ActiveMQ using the Web Console by pointing your browser at

http://localhost:8161/admin

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

Stopping ActiveMQ

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

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

ps -ef|grep activemq kill [PID]   where [PID] is the process id of the ActiveMQ process.

Configuring ActiveMQ

The ActiveMQ broker should now run. You can configure the broker by specifying an Xml Configuration file as a parameter to theactivemq 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 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 is running with a basic configuration. For details on configuring options, please see refer to theConfiguration section.

Additional Resources

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

FUSE Source ActiveMQ Getting Started Guide (Note: FUSE Message Broker is an open source Apache licenced enterprise version of ActiveMQ)