Introduction

In this example HowTo we see an example of the type of information you will learn about connecting WebSphere Application server 8 and WebSphere MQ (WAS 8.x and WMQ connectivity). This about 75% of one of the modules in my course title: WebSphere MQ 7.5 Administration Essentials course.

Here, we are going to use WebSphere MQ, a messaging system from IBM. WebSphere MQ is a robust product and supports the highest QoS i.e. delivering a message exactly once.

WebSphere Application Server supports connectivity to MQ through JMS interface, and due to this support, application developers can use the same set of JMS interfaces to send and receive messages i.e. they need not learn a new API.

Steps involved

First we will be installing WebSphere MQ product. Then we will be creating a Queue Manager and a Queue. In MQ, Queues are hosted using Queue Managers.

We need to reconfigure the wastest application to use a different connection factory that helps creating a connection to MQ. Also the wastest application will be used to post a message to a queue that resides on external MQ Queue Manager as opposed to the Queue that was hosted on the default JMS provider present within WAS.

IBM WebSphere MQ – Product Installation

MQ trial version can be downloaded from the following web page.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ws/wmq

You will need an IBM user id to download. So you can use the same IBM user id that you used to download WAS. Select the flavour that is suitable for your Operating System. In this HowTo we are going to use

WebSphere MQ V7.1 Trial for Linux on x86 64bit Multilingual – CI510ML.tar.gz

The size of the download is 366 MB.

1. Download WebSphere MQ V7.1
2. Decompress the file CI510ML.tar.gz
   

You will find a script called mqlicense.sh under the base directory after the decompression. Execute this script to accept the license agreement.

1. Accept license agreement

sudo ./mqlicense.sh –accept

• Install MQ using the rpm package manager

Ubuntu users can refer to Appendix A for information on installing the rpm packages.

A Unix user called mqm will be created on running the MQSeriesRuntime installable. All the MQ commands can be executed only as user mqm.

• So you need to switch to mqm user now

$ su – mqm

It is recommended to reset the password for mqm user at this point.  $ sudo passwd mqm Enter new UNIX password: Retype new UNIX password: passwd: password updated successfully

The first command that we can try after the installation is the dspmqver command.

• Cd to /opt/mqm/bin directory
• Issue the dspmqver command as shown below.

/opt/mqm/bin/dspmqver

We can see the product version as a result of executing this command.

Creating a Queue Manager

• Create a Queue Manager called TESTMGR1 using crtmqm command

$ crtmqm TESTMGR1

• Issue the dspmq command and check whether the Queue Manager is listed or not

• Start the Queue Manager using strmqm command

./strmqm TESTMGR1

Creating a Queue

• Open MQ scripting command line by giving the Queue Manager name

./runmqsc TESTMGR1

• Create a Queue called “Q1LOCAL”

define qlocal(Q1LOCAL)

• Quit the MQ command line by typing “end”

In the following example, user input is highlighted in Red colour

• Verify the presence of the new queue using the following command.

• Add Listener definition using the following commands

Here we mention the transport type and port number for the listener.

The following example shows both the user input and the text emitted by MQ. User Input is highlighted.

1. Now restart the Queue Manager using endmqm and strmqm commands as shown below

If you give the start command strmqm before the Queue Manager stops, the start command just says Queue Manager <Queue Manager Name> ending as shown in the example above.

1. Verify that the Listener started by issuing the ps command and grepping for mqlsr

Create a MQ Channel

A Channel is a logical communication link between a WMQ client and a WMQ Queue Manager. In a production environment the communication that happens through this channel has to be secured. The WebSphere MQ end configuration will be usually taken care by WebSphere MQ specialists and we will not be focusing on that topic.

1. Create a default channel

runmqsc TESTMGR1

DEFINE CHANNEL(SYSTEM.ADMIN.SVRCONN) +

CHLTYPE(SVRCONN) +

TRPTYPE(TCP) +

DESCR(‘WebSphere MQ Default Channel’) +

REPLACE

End

The example given below shows both user input and text emitted by MQ.

Let us put a sample message using the sample program provided by WebSphere MQ and then get it back, just to verify the setup. This program was installed when we installed the package MQSeriesSamples-7.1.0-0.x86_64.rpm and will be available under /opt/mqm/samp/bin directory.

• Execute amqsput, type the message text, press Enter key twice

The following example shows the user input and the text emitted by WMQ.

• Execute amqsget

The Unix user account root has to be added to mqm group. This is required in our test environment to make things work. Since our focus is on WebSphere Application Server, let us do this. Note that this is not a recommended practice.

• Add root user to mqm group

$ usermod -a -G mqm root

Now we are going to configure MQ security to modify access privileges to all the members of the mqm group. This will provide access to all the objects within the Queue Manager.

• Execute setmqaut command as shown below

setmqaut -m TESTMGR1 -t qmgr -g mqm +all

Creating a Queue Connection Factory

This step is similar to the one explained in Part 1.

• Expand Resources in the left navigation pane of admin console
• Expand JMS
• Click on Queue connection factories

• Select Cell scope
• Click New button

Next “Select JMS resource provider” screen comes up. This is where we are going to select MQ as the messaging provider.

• Select WebSphere MQ messaging provider option

Configure Basic Attributes screen is displayed as shown in the screen shot.

• Enter “wmq_qcf_1″ for the name of QCF
• Enter “jms/wmq_qcf_1″ for the JNDI name

• Select Enter all the required information into this wizard option
• Click Next button

In this case we give “TESTMGR1” which is the name of the Queue Manager we created earlier.

• Enter the name of the Queue Manager
• Click Next button

• Give the hostname of the machine where MQ Queue Manager is running
• Give the port number of the listener
• Enter “SYSTEM.ADMIN.SVRCONN” in the Server connection channel field
• Click Next button

Now the wizard provides an option to test the connection to WMQ.

• Click on Test connection button

The test results are shown as seen in the screen shot.

• Click Next button

Review the summary information.

• Click Finish button

• Click Save link

Now the new WMQ Queue Connection Factory is displayed in the table as shown in the screen shot.

Creating a Queue Destination

This queue created in WAS represents the queue that was created earlier in WMQ.

• Expand Resources in the left navigation pane
• Expand JMS
• Click on Queues
• Select Cell scope in the drop down
• Click New button

• Select WebSphere MQ messaging provider option
• Click OK button

• Give a name to the Queue in the Name field (This need not be the same as the MQ Queue name, i.e. Q1LOCAL)
• Give a unique JNDI name to the Queue in the JNDI Name field
• In the Queue Name field, provide the actual name of the Queue that was created in WMQ.
• Click on OK button

• Click Save link

We have completed the setup and a JEE application deployed in WAS can now start using the MQ messaging infrastructure. We can verify the setup using the test tool that we have.