Ways of administering IBM MQ queue managers and associated resources

There are several different options for administering IBM® MQ queue managers and associated resources.

IBM MQ control commands

You can perform administrative tasks on queue managers themselves by using the control commands.

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

The control commands are described in Creating and managing queue managers on Multiplatforms. 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.

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

[UNIX, Linux, Windows] On UNIX, Linux, and Windows, 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 command line. MQSC commands can be sent to a remote queue manager. For full details, see Running MQSC commands from text files.

To issue the commands on an IBM i server, create a list of commands in a Script file, 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 that are issued from a script file are returned in a spool file.

For more information about using MQSC commands, see Administration using MQSC commands.

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 IBM MQ Programmable Command Formats.

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

The administrative REST API

The administrative REST API provides a RESTful interface that you can use to administer IBM MQ. When you use the administrative REST API, you invoke an HTTP method on a URL that represents an IBM MQ object. For example, you can request information about IBM MQ installations by using the HTTP method GET on the following URL:

https://localhost:9443/ibmmq/rest/v1/admin/installation

You can use the administrative REST API with the HTTP/REST implementation of a programming language, or by using tools such as cURL, or a REST client browser add-on.

For more information, see The administrative REST API

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 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 IBM MQ Explorer

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

Define and control various resources, such as 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 IBM MQ Explorer by using the system menu, the MQExplorer executable file, or the strmqcfg command.

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

For more information, see Administration using the IBM MQ Explorer.

You can use IBM MQ Explorer to administer remote queue managers on other platforms including z/OS.

IBM MQ Explorer can be installed either as part of the product installation (see Installing and uninstalling IBM MQ), or from the stand-alone IBM MQ Explorer download available from Fix Central (see Installing and uninstalling IBM MQ Explorer as a stand-alone application on Linux and Windows).

The IBM MQ Console

You can use the IBM MQ Console to administer IBM MQ from a web browser.

For more information, see Administration using a web console.

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 that are 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 as follows:

IBM MQ clusters: These 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: These are groups of computers, which are 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 re-initiating 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.