Starting the CICS-MQ bridge

If you are using a CICS® MQ monitor to control the bridge and if the MQMONITOR resource has been configured correctly, the bridge automatically starts when the connection to the MQ queue manager is established. Using an MQMONITOR resource is the recommended method of controlling the bridge. You can also manually start the bridge using the CKBR transaction.

Before you begin

If you want to use an MQ monitor to control the bridge, you must define and install an MQMONITOR resource for controlling the MQ bridge. For detailed instructions, see Setting up an MQMONITOR resource for the CICS-MQ bridge. Note that the attributes needed by the CICS-MQ bridge must be specified in the MONDATA attribute of the MQMONITOR.
In addition, if security checking is active (that is, the SEC system initialization parameter is set to YES), ensure that the user ID associated with the transaction that attempts to set the MQ monitor state to started is a surrogate of the user ID defined in MONUSERID and is authorized to start transactions associated with the MONUSERID. In the case of setting the MQ monitor state through a CICSPlex® SM API interface such as the CICS Explorer®, the user ID to be associated with the MQ monitor transaction is either the region user ID or the PLTPIUSR user ID (if specified).

Procedure

To automatically start the CICS-MQ bridge when the connection to the MQ queue manager is established, you must use an MQ monitor to control the bridge and ensure that this MQMONITOR resource has attributes AUTOSTART(YES) and STATUS(ENABLED).
When the connection between CICS and MQ has been established, CICS will start MQ monitors that have been installed with attributes AUTOSTART(YES) and STATUS(ENABLED) if the user ID associated with the task that set the MQCONN resource to CONNECTED has sufficient authority to start the associated transactions.
If you are using an MQ monitor to control the bridge, you can manually start the MQ monitor in several ways. Follow the instructions in Starting a CICS MQ monitor.
If you want to manually start the bridge using the CKBR transaction, start the CKBR task with one of the following methods:
- Input a single line from a terminal (3270 or other):
```
CKBR Q=<queue name>,AUTH=<auth option>,WAIT=nnn,MSG=<msg option>,PASSTKTA=<applid>,ROUTEMEM=<routemem option>,SMFMQGET=<number>
```
  For example:
```
CKBR Q=MyQueue,AUTH=IDENTIFY,WAIT=30,MSG=LOG,PASSTKTA=APP1,ROUTEMEM=Y,SMFMQGET=1
```
  Following your input, the terminal is unlocked so it can be used for other work.
- Issue an EXEC CICS START command for the CKBR transaction with the parameters as data.
  You can have a program that runs as part of CICS PLTPI processing to issue this command, and specifies the user ID under which the bridge monitor transaction is to run.
- Issue an EXEC CICS LINK to the program DFHMQBR0 (also known as CSQCBR00) with the parameters as data in the COMMAREA.
  DFHMQBR0 is a long-running task and this program returns only when the bridge stops.
- Use TRIGGER TRIGTYPE(FIRST) on the bridge request queue to start a process specifying APPLICID(CKBR), with any parameters in USERDATA.
  Note that you cannot specify the Q=qqq parameter in USERDATA, so this method is not suitable if you have defined your own request queue.

What to do next

If you are running multiple bridge monitors sharing a request queue, you can start one of the monitors by putting a message onto the bridge request queue. However, for private local queues, only one trigger message is produced, so the bridge monitor starts on only one CICS region. To start further bridge monitors, you should therefore consider alternative methods, such as using a program in the CICS startup PLT processing to start the transaction with the required parameters, or using automation products to start the transaction. If you shut down the bridge by altering the request queue attributes, remember to reset GET(ENABLED) after the bridge has shut down.