Choosing an installation location

You can install IBM® MQ into the default location. Alternatively, you can install into a custom location during the installation process. The location where IBM MQ is installed is known as the MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH.

Default location

The default location for the IBM MQ product code is shown in the following table:
Table 1. Installation location of IBM MQ
Platform Installation location
[AIX] AIX® [AIX] /usr/mqm
[Solaris][HP-UX][Linux]Linux® , HP-UX, and Solaris [Solaris][HP-UX][Linux]/opt/mqm
[IBMi]IBM i [IBMi]/QIBM/ProdData/mqm
[Windows] Windows systems [Windows] C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere MQ
[Windows] Windows data directories [Windows] C:\ProgramData\IBM\MQ
Important: For Windows installations, the directories are as stated, unless there is a previous installation of IBM MQ that still contains registry entries or queue managers, or both. In this situation, the new installation uses the old data directory location. For more information, see Program and data directory locations.

A Windows 32-bit client installs on a 32-bit machine, by default, only into C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere MQ.

A Windows 64-bit client installs on a 64-bit machine, by default, only into C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere MQ.

On IBM i, IBM MQ can only be installed in the default location. For more information about the directory structure of IBM i, see Directory structure on IBM i

On UNIX and Linux systems, working data is stored in /var/mqm, but you cannot change this location. For more information about the directory structure of UNIX and Linux systems, see Directory structure on UNIX and Linux systems.

Custom location installation

For an installation into a custom location, the path specified must either be an empty directory, or a path that does not exist. The length of the path is limited to 256 bytes.

  • On UNIX and Linux systems, the path must not contain spaces.
  • On AIX, the product is installed into a User Specified Install Location (USIL), which can be either an existing USIL or a new USIL that is automatically created by the installation process. If a custom location is specified, the product location is the path specified during installation, plus /usr/mqm.

    For example, the path specified is /usr/custom_location. The MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH is /usr/custom_location/usr/mqm.

    Access permissions for the USIL directory should be set to rwx for user and r-x for group and others (755).

  • On Windows, Linux, HP-UX, and Solaris, the product location is the same path as specified during installation.

    For example, on Linux, the path specified is /opt/custom_location. The MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH is /opt/custom_location.

  • On Linux, Solaris, and HP-UX, you can install IBM MQ into a non empty MQ_INSTALLATION_PATH directory.

    On Linux and Solaris you do this by setting the environment variable AMQ_OVERRIDE_EMPTY_INSTALL_PATH to 1 before starting the installation.

    On HP-UX you need to create the file /tmp/AMQ_OVERRIDE_EMPTY_INSTALL_PATH before starting the installation.

    Note, that a non empty directory in this context, indicates a directory which contains system files and directories.

For each installation, all of the IBM MQ components that you require must be installed in the same location.

For more information about how to install to a custom location, see the installation topics for the appropriate platform.

Additional location restrictions

New IBM MQ installations should not be located in the following paths:
  • In a path that is a subdirectory of another existing installation.
  • In a path that is part of the direct path to an existing installation.
  • In a path that is a subdirectory of the default location, for example:
    • /usr/mqm on AIX
    • /opt/mqm on Linux, Solaris and HP-UX platforms
  • In a directory or subdirectory that is, or might later be used by another product, for example, an IBM Db2® installation, or operating system component.

An installation should not be located in /opt/mqm/v80, /opt/mqm/v75, /opt/mqm/inst2/mq71, or other directory located under /opt/mqm on Linux, Solaris and HP-UX platforms.

If IBM MQ is installed in /opt/IBM/MQ/installations/1, you can not install in /opt/IBM/MQ/installations/1/a. Additionally, you should not install a new installation to /opt/IBM/MQ. However, you can install a new installation in /opt/IBM/MQ/installations/2 or /opt/IBM/MQnew because neither of these is a part of the direct path /opt/IBM/MQ/installations/1.

You must not install to any directory located under /opt/IBM/db2.

The reason an installation should not be located in a path that is a subdirectory of the default location is to avoid the risk if you later decide to install IBM MQ into the default location, and cannot then do so. If you do subsequently install into the default location, because IBM MQ has full access rights over the installation directory, existing files might be replaced or deleted. Scripts that you might subsequently run to uninstall IBM MQ might remove the installation directory at the end of the script.