Administering IBM MQ

Administering queue managers and associated resources includes the tasks that you perform frequently to activate and manage those resources. Choose the method you prefer to administer your queue managers and associated resources.

You can administer IBM® MQ objects locally or remotely, see Local and remote administration.

There are a number of different methods that you can use to create and administer your queue managers and their related resources in IBM MQ. These methods include command-line interfaces, a graphical user interface, and an administration API. See the sections and links in this topic for more information about each of these interfaces.

There are different sets of commands that you can use to administer IBM MQ depending on your platform:

There are also the other following options for creating and managing IBM MQ objects:

For information about the administration interfaces and options on IBM MQ for z/OS®, see Administering IBM MQ for z/OS.

You can automate some administration and monitoring tasks for both local and remote queue managers by using PCF commands. These commands can also be simplified through the use of the IBM MQ Administration Interface (MQAI) on some platforms. For more information about automating administration tasks, see Automating administration tasks.

IBM MQ control commands

Control commands allow you to perform administrative tasks on queue managers themselves.

IBM MQ for Windows, UNIX and Linux® systems provides the control commands that you issue at the system command line.

The control commands are described in Creating and managing queue managers on distributed platforms. For the command reference for the control commands, see IBM MQ Control commands.

IBM MQ Script (MQSC) commands

Use MQSC commands to manage queue manager objects, including the queue manager itself, queues, process definitions, namelists, channels, client connection channels, listeners, services, and authentication information objects.

You issue MQSC commands to a queue manager by using the runmqsc command. You can do this interactively, issuing commands from a keyboard, or you can redirect the standard input device (stdin) to run a sequence of commands from an ASCII text file. In both cases, the format of the commands is the same.

You can run the runmqsc command in three modes, depending on the flags set on the command:

Verification mode, where the MQSC commands are verified on a local queue manager, but are not run
Direct mode, where the MQSC commands are run on a local queue manager
Indirect mode, where the MQSC commands are run on a remote queue manager

Object attributes specified in MQSC commands are shown in this section in uppercase (for example, RQMNAME), although they are not case-sensitive. MQSC command attribute names are limited to eight characters.

MQSC commands are available on all platforms [IBMi] [z/OS] , including IBM i, and z/OS . MQSC commands are summarized in Comparing command sets.

On Windows, UNIX or Linux, you can use the MQSC as single commands issued at the system command line. To issue more complicated, or multiple commands, the MQSC can be built into a file that you run from the Windows, UNIX or Linux system command line. MQSC can be sent to a remote queue manager. For full details, see Building command scripts.

On IBM i, to issue the commands on an IBM i server, create a list of commands in a Script file, and then run the file by using the STRMQMMQSC command.

Notes:

Do not use the QTEMP library as the input library to STRMQMMQSC, as the usage of the QTEMP library is limited. You must use another library as an input file to the command.
On IBM i, MQSC responses to commands issued from a script file are returned in a spool file.

Script (MQSC) Commands contains a description of each MQSC command and its syntax.

See Performing local administration tasks using MQSC commands for more information about using MQSC commands in local administration.

Programmable Command Formats (PCFs)

Programmable Command Formats (PCFs) define command and reply messages that can be exchanged between a program and any queue manager (that supports PCFs) in a network. You can use PCF commands in a systems management application program for administration of IBM MQ objects: authentication information objects, channels, channel listeners, namelists, process definitions, queue managers, queues, services, and storage classes. The application can operate from a single point in the network to communicate command and reply information with any queue manager, local, or remote, using the local queue manager.

For more information about PCFs, see Introduction to Programmable Command Formats.

For definition of PCFs and structures for the commands and responses, see Programmable command formats reference.

IBM i Control Language (CL)

This language can be used to issue administration commands to IBM MQ for IBM i. The commands can be issued either at the command line or by writing a CL program. These commands perform similar functions to PCF commands, but the format is different. CL commands are designed exclusively for servers and CL responses are designed to be human-readable, whereas PCF commands are platform independent and both command and response formats are intended for program use.

For full details of the IBM i Control Language (CL), see IBM MQ for IBM i CL commands.

The MQ Explorer

Using the MQ Explorer, you can perform the following actions:

Define and control various resources including queue managers, queues, process definitions, namelists, channels, client connection channels, listeners, services, and clusters.
Start or stop a local queue manager and its associated processes.
View queue managers and their associated objects on your workstation or from other workstations.
Check the status of queue managers, clusters, and channels.
Check to see which applications, users, or channels have a particular queue open, from the queue status.

On Windows and Linux systems, you can start MQ Explorer by using the system menu, the MQExplorer executable file, or the strmqcfg command.

On Linux, to start the MQ Explorer successfully, you must be able to write a file to your home directory, and the home directory must exist.

See Administration using the MQ Explorer for more information.

You can use MQ Explorer to administer remote queue managers on other platforms including z/OS, for details and to download the SupportPac MS0T, see https://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24021041.

The Windows Default Configuration application

You can use the Windows Default Configuration program to create a starter (or default) set of IBM MQ objects. A summary of the default objects created is listed in Table 1: Objects created by the Windows default configuration application.

The Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS)

Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) enables you to connect servers into a cluster, giving higher availability of data and applications, and making it easier to manage the system. MSCS can automatically detect and recover from server or application failures.

It is important not to confuse clusters in the MSCS sense with IBM MQ clusters. The distinction is:

IBM MQ clusters: are groups of two or more queue managers on one or more computers, providing automatic interconnection, and allowing queues to be shared among them for load balancing and redundancy.
MSCS clusters: Groups of computers, connected together and configured in such a way that, if one fails, MSCS performs a failover, transferring the state data of applications from the failing computer to another computer in the cluster and reinitiating their operation there.

Supporting the Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) provides detailed information about how to configure your IBM MQ for Windows system to use MSCS.