Java system properties for MFT

A number of Managed File Transfer command and agent properties must be defined as Java system properties, because they define configuration for early function that is unable to use the command or agent properties mechanism. [MQ 10.0.0 Jun 2026] Other Java system properties might be required because of the Java runtime environment version.

Define system properties and other JVM options for the JVM that is to run Managed File Transfer commands by defining the environment variable BFG_JVM_PROPERTIES. If more than one system property or JVM option needs to be specified, each entry should be separated by spaces. For example, to set the com.ibm.wmqfte.maxConsoleLineLength property on a UNIX-type platform, and the Java option -Xmx used to specify the maximum Java heap size, define the variable as follows:

export BFG_JVM_PROPERTIES="-Dcom.ibm.wmqfte.maxConsoleLineLength=132 -Xmx1024M"

If you are running an agent as a Windows service, you can modify the agent's Java system properties by specifying the -sj parameter on the fteModifyAgent command.

Table 1. Java system properties
Property name	Description	Value
com.ibm.wmqfte.maxConsoleLineLength	Maximum length of line that can be written to the console. Lines that exceed this length are word wrapped. This value is expressed in bytes (not characters).	The default length for IBM® i is 132 bytes. For AIX®, Linux®, and Windows, the length is unlimited. For z/OS®, the length is unlimited.
com.ibm.wmqfte.daemon.windows.windowsServiceLogFilesm	(Windows only.) Specifies the maximum number of Windows service log files to keep. Windows service log files are created in the agent and database logger logs directories if these applications are running as a Windows service. Windows service log files are named with the prefix `service`, and contain messages about the starting and stopping of the service.	5
file.encoding	From IBM MQ 10.0.0, if you are using IBM Semeru Runtime 21 or later with Managed File Transfer, this property is required because IBM Semeru Runtime 21, and later versions, use a default file encoding of UTF-8 but MFT requires a file encoding of IBM-1047. For more information, see Developing JMS/Jakarta Messaging and Java applications .	IBM-1047 or COMPAT For more information, see z/OS JCL variables.

Note: From IBM MQ 10.0, you have support for IBM Semeru Runtime 21 on z/OS for the MFT component.