Location of the client configuration file

An IBM® MQ MQI client configuration file can be held in a number of locations.

A client application uses the following search path to locate the IBM MQ MQI client configuration file:

The location specified by the environment variable MQCLNTCF.
The format of this environment variable is a full URL. This means the file name might not necessarily be mqclient.ini and facilitates placing the file on a network attached file-system.
Notes:
- C, .NET and XMS clients support only the file: protocol; the file: protocol is assumed if the URL string does not begin with protocol:
- To allow for Java 1.4.2 JREs, which do not support reading environment variables, the MQCLNTCF environment variable can be overridden with an MQCLNTCF Java System Property.
A file called mqclient.ini in the present working directory of the application.
A file called mqclient.ini in the IBM MQ data directory for AIX®, Linux®, and Windows systems.
Notes:
- The IBM MQ data directory does not exist in the following cases:
  - on IBM i
  - on z/OS®
  - where the client has been supplied with another product
  On IBM i, there is no default mqclient.ini file. However, the file can be created in the IBM i Integrated File System (IFS) in directory /QIBM/UserData/mqm/, and environment variable MQCLNTCF defined to point to it. For example:
```
ADDENVVAR ENVVAR(MQCLNTCF) VALUE('QIBM/UserData/mqm/mqclient.ini') REPLACE(*YES)
```
  For more examples of environment variables, see Environment variables descriptions.
  The z/OS platform cannot be used to run IBM MQ clients. Therefore, the mqclient.ini file does not exist on IBM MQ for z/OS.
- On AIX and Linux systems, the directory is /var/mqm.
- On Windows platforms you configure the environment variable MQ_DATA_PATH during installation to point at the data directory. It is normally C:\ProgramData\IBM\MQ.
  Note: If you are installing a client only, the environment variable might be MQ_FILE_PATH.
- To allow for Java 1.4.2 JREs that do not support reading environment variables you can manually override the MQ_DATA_PATH environment variable with an MQ_DATA_PATH Java System Property.
A file called mqclient.ini in a standard directory appropriate to the platform, and accessible to users:
- For all Java clients this is the value of the user.home Java System Property.
- For C clients on AIX and Linux platforms this is the value of the HOME environment variable.
- For C clients on Windows this is the concatenated values of the HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH environment variables.