11 easy steps for installing Apache ActiveMQ and configuring it for PHP application

Apache ActiveMQ is one good option for implementing message queue in your PHP application. It can be easily installed on your server and it's web accessible admin interface really makes administrator's life easy. It can be easily connected with PHP via STOMP. I will suggesst to use MySql for Data persistance and start ActiveMQ as unix service.

Basic requirements: java, php, mysql.

So lets starts with installation steps:

Step 1: Apache ActiveMQ installation

I am installing ActiveMQ in /usr/share/php directory.

cd /usr/share/php
wget http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/apache/activemq/apache-activemq/5.3.0/apache-activemq-5.3.0-bin.tar.gz
tar zxvf apache-activemq-5.3.0-bin.tar.gz
mv apache-activemq-5.3.0 activemq

We have renamed the directory to “activemq” for ease.

.

Step 2: Run Apache ActiveMq

activemq/bin/activemq

Don't close this terminal, open a new terminal for running below commands

.

Step3: Check running status of ActiveMq

netstat -an|grep 61616
ps -ef|grep activemq

ps command will show the process id (PID) of running ActiveMQ

.

Step4: ActiveMQ Web Admin interface

http://localhost:8161/admin/

Here you can monitor your current status of queues, topics, connections etc. You can also browse,
delete, add data according to requirement.

.

Step5: Stop Apache AcitveMQ

  kill -9 [PID]

where [PID] is the process id of the ActiveMQ process. Take it from ps command

.

Step6: ActiveMQ admin command

ActiveMQ is taking configuration details via simple xml (default:activemq.xml) file located in conf directory.

   vi activemq/conf/activemq.xml

Make a small change in activemq.xml and your activemq-admin command will start working
Change the default createConnector=”false” to createConnector=”true” like below:

Now you can use below command for starting Apache ActiveMQ, stopping it and listing the connected brokers.

   activemq/bin/activemq-admin start
   activemq/bin/activemq-admin stop
   activemq/bin/activemq-admin list

.

Step7: Configure STOMP transport connector, so that your PHP application can communicate with ActiveMQ

   vi activemq/conf/activemq.xml

The default transport connector is openwire for native connectivity to Java and it will be available at tcp port 61616.

Change below code:

to

.

Step8: Data Persistence with MySql

Download latest MySQL Java Connector (mysql-connector-java-5.0.6-bin.jar) from MySql website.
Copy the file into “activemq/lib/optional” folder

Launch the MySQL command line program and create a database for ActiveMQ

mysql> create database activemq;

vi activemq/conf/activemq.xml

The default persistence adapter is kahaDB which is fast but not very reliable. You can test it according to your condition or give MySql a change and take the better one.

Change below code:

to

.

Start the ActiveMQ and check the MySql

mysql> use activemq; show tables;
Database changed
+--------------------+
| Tables_in_activemq |
+--------------------+
| ACTIVEMQ_ACKS      |
| ACTIVEMQ_LOCK      |
| activemq_msgs      |
+--------------------+

Your MySql data persistence is working fine.

.

Step9. Installing PHP STOMP client

pecl install stomp-beta

It will generate a stomp.so in /usr/lib/php/modules/ directory. Open /etc/php.ini and load the extension like below

extension=stomp.so

Restart httpd service like below:

service httpd restart

.

Step10. PHP message queue producer and consumer code

Now you have to make two php sample files, one for producting messages in queue and other for consuming those messages.

producer.php
————————————————————————————

getMessage());
}

for($i=1;$i<10;$i++)
{
$msg1 = "queue one my data".$i;

$stomp->send($queue1, $msg1, array('persistent' => 'true'));
}	

unset($stomp);
?>

In above code, I have generated a few messages via loop. In real senerio, it will be generated by events whenever something need to be processed in queue.

consumer.php
————————————————————————————

getMessage());
}

$stomp->subscribe($queue1);

while(1)
{
$frame = $stomp->readFrame();

if ( $frame != null) 
{
echo $frame->body; //process your message
echo "\n";	
$stomp->ack($frame);	
}
}

unset($stomp);
?>

If you look at the code carefully, the consumption of messages are in a infinite loop. The consumer is ready to process all incoming messages.
You have to run the consumer code from your terminal like below:

nohup php consumer.php > consumer.log 2>&1 &

It will start consumer.php forever with nohup command, directs the messages in the consumer.log file.

.

Step11. Configure ActiveMQ as Unix Service

ActiveMQ should be configured as Unix Service and it should start automatically if your server restarts.

Create ActiveMQ startup script /etc/init.d/activemqstart.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
export JAVA_HOME=/usr
/usr/share/php/activemq/bin/activemq &

Create ActiveMQ stop script /etc/init.d/activemqstop.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
export JAVA_HOME=/usr
/usr/share/php/activemq/bin/activemq-admin stop

Create ActiveMQ Linux service configuration script /etc/init.d/activemq with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
#
# activemq       Starts ActiveMQ.
#
# chkconfig: 345 88 12
# description: ActiveMQ is a JMS Messaging Queue Server.
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: $activemq
### END INIT INFO

# Source function library.
. /etc/init.d/functions

[ -f /etc/init.d/activemqstart.sh ] || exit 0
[ -f /etc/init.d/activemqstop.sh ] || exit 0

RETVAL=0

umask 077

start() {
       echo -n $"Starting ActiveMQ: "
       daemon /etc/init.d/activemqstart.sh
       echo
       return $RETVAL
}
stop() {
       echo -n $"Shutting down ActiveMQ: "
       daemon su -c /etc/init.d/activemqstop.sh activemq
       echo
       return $RETVAL
}
restart() {
       stop
       start
}
case "$1" in
start)
       start
       ;;
stop)
       stop
       ;;
restart|reload)
       restart
       ;;
*)
       echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
       exit 1
esac

exit $?

Enable ActiveMQ service configuration as Linux Daemon:

chmod +x /etc/init.d/activemqstart.sh
chmod +x /etc/init.d/activemqstop.sh
chmod +x /etc/init.d/activemq
/sbin/chkconfig --add activemq
/sbin/chkconfig activemq on

Restart the server.

reboot

All done, Enjoy!
Cheers!!