Running the MQ sink connector

You can use the MQ sink connector to copy data from Event Streams or Apache Kafka into IBM MQ. The connector copies messages from a Kafka topic into a target MQ queue.

Kafka Connect can be run in standalone or distributed mode. This document contains steps for running the connector in distributed mode on a Kubernetes platform. In this mode, work balancing is automatic, scaling is dynamic, and tasks and data are fault-tolerant. For more details on the difference between standalone and distributed mode see the explanation of Kafka Connect workers.

Prerequisites

To follow these instructions, ensure you have IBM MQ v8 or later installed.

Note: These instructions are for IBM MQ v9 running on Linux. If you are using a different version or platform, you might have to adjust some steps slightly.

Setting up the queue manager

You can set up a queue manager by using the local operating system to authenticate, or by using the IBM MQ Operator.

By using local operating system to authenticate

These sample instructions set up an IBM MQ queue manager that uses its local operating system to authenticate the user ID and password. The user ID and password you provide must already be created on the operating system where IBM MQ is running.

  1. Log in as a user authorized to administer IBM MQ, and ensure the MQ commands are on the path.

  2. Create a queue manager with a TCP/IP listener on port 1414: crtmqm -p 1414 <queue_manager_name>

    For example, to create a queue manager called QM1, use: crtmqm -p 1414 QM1

  3. Start the queue manager: strmqm <queue_manager_name>
  4. Start the runmqsc tool to configure the queue manager: runmqsc <queue_manager_name>
  5. In runmqsc, create a server-connection channel: DEFINE CHANNEL(<channel_name>) CHLTYPE(SVRCONN)
  6. Set the channel authentication rules to accept connections requiring userid and password:
    1. SET CHLAUTH(<channel_name>) TYPE(BLOCKUSER) USERLIST('nobody')
    2. SET CHLAUTH('*') TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(NOACCESS)
    3. SET CHLAUTH(<channel_name>) TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(CHANNEL) CHCKCLNT(REQUIRED)
  7. Set the identity of the client connections based on the supplied context (the user ID): ALTER AUTHINFO(SYSTEM.DEFAULT.AUTHINFO.IDPWOS) AUTHTYPE(IDPWOS) ADOPTCTX(YES)
  8. Refresh the connection authentication information: REFRESH SECURITY TYPE(CONNAUTH)
  9. Create a queue for the Kafka Connect connector to use: DEFINE QLOCAL(<queue_name>)
  10. Authorize the IBM MQ user ID to connect to and inquire the queue manager: SET AUTHREC OBJTYPE(QMGR) PRINCIPAL('<user_id>') AUTHADD(CONNECT,INQ)
  11. Authorize the IBM MQ user ID to use the queue: SET AUTHREC PROFILE(<queue_name>) OBJTYPE(QUEUE) PRINCIPAL('<user_id>') AUTHADD(ALLMQI)
  12. Stop the runmqsc tool by typing END.

For example, for a queue manager called QM1, with user ID alice, creating a server-connection channel called MYSVRCONN and a queue called MYQSINK, you run the following commands in runmqsc:

DEFINE CHANNEL(MYSVRCONN) CHLTYPE(SVRCONN)
SET CHLAUTH(MYSVRCONN) TYPE(BLOCKUSER) USERLIST('nobody')
SET CHLAUTH('*') TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(NOACCESS)
SET CHLAUTH(MYSVRCONN) TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(CHANNEL) CHCKCLNT(REQUIRED)
ALTER AUTHINFO(SYSTEM.DEFAULT.AUTHINFO.IDPWOS) AUTHTYPE(IDPWOS) ADOPTCTX(YES)
REFRESH SECURITY TYPE(CONNAUTH)
DEFINE QLOCAL(MYQSINK)
SET AUTHREC OBJTYPE(QMGR) PRINCIPAL('alice') AUTHADD(CONNECT,INQ)
SET AUTHREC PROFILE(MYQSINK) OBJTYPE(QUEUE) PRINCIPAL('alice') AUTHADD(ALLMQI)
END

The queue manager is now ready to accept connection from the connector and put messages on a queue.

By using the IBM MQ Operator

You can also use IBM MQ Operator to set up a queue manager. For more information about installing the IBM MQ Operator and setting up a queue manager, see the IBM MQ documentation.

If you are using IBM MQ Operator to set up a queue manager, you can use the following yaml to create a queue manager with the required configuration:

  1. Create a file called custom-sink-mqsc-configmap.yaml and copy the following YAML content to create the ConfigMap that has the details for creates a server-connection channel called MYSVRCONN and a queue called MYQSINK:

    apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
   name: custom-sink-mqsc
data:
   sink.mqsc: |
         DEFINE CHANNEL(MYSVRCONN) CHLTYPE(SVRCONN)
         SET CHLAUTH(MYSVRCONN) TYPE(BLOCKUSER) USERLIST('nobody')
         SET CHLAUTH('*') TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(NOACCESS)
         SET CHLAUTH(MYSVRCONN) TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(CHANNEL) CHCKCLNT(REQUIRED)
         ALTER AUTHINFO(SYSTEM.DEFAULT.AUTHINFO.IDPWOS) AUTHTYPE(IDPWOS) ADOPTCTX(YES)
         REFRESH SECURITY TYPE(CONNAUTH)
         DEFINE QLOCAL(MYQSINK)
         SET AUTHREC OBJTYPE(QMGR) PRINCIPAL('alice') AUTHADD(CONNECT,INQ)
         SET AUTHREC PROFILE(MYQSINK) OBJTYPE(QUEUE) PRINCIPAL('alice') AUTHADD(ALLMQI)

  2. Create the ConfigMap by using the following command:

    oc apply -f custom-sink-mqsc-configmap.yaml

  3. To create a queue manager with the required configuration, update the spec.queueManager section of the QueueManager custom resource YAML file:

    # ...
queueManager:
   # ...
   mqsc:
   - configMap:
      name: custom-sink-mqsc
      items:
      - sink.mqsc

The queue manager is now ready to accept connection from the connector and put messages on a queue.

Configuring the connector to connect to MQ

To connect to IBM MQ and to your Event Streams or Apache Kafka cluster, the connector requires configuration settings added to a KafkaConnector custom resource that represents the connector.

For IBM MQ connectors, you can generate the KafkaConnector custom resource YAML file from either the Event Streams UI or the CLI. You can also use the CLI to generate a JSON file, which you can use in distributed mode where you supply the connector configuration through REST API calls.

The connector connects to IBM MQ using a client connection. You must provide the following connection information for your queue manager (these configuration settings are added to the spec.config section of the KafkaConnector custom resource YAML):

  • Comma-separated list of Kafka topics to pull events from.
  • The name of the IBM MQ queue manager.
  • The connection name (one or more host and port pairs).
  • The channel name.
  • The name of the sink IBM MQ queue.
  • The user name and password if the queue manager is configured to require them for client connections.

Using the UI

Use the Event Streams UI to generate and download the KafkaConnector custom resource YAML file for your IBM MQ sink connector.

  1. Log in to the Event Streams UI from a supported web browser (see how to determine the login URL for your Event Streams UI).
  2. Click Toolbox in the primary navigation and scroll to the Connectors section.
  3. Go to the Add connectors to your Kafka Connect environment tile and click Connecting to IBM MQ?
  4. Ensure the MQ Sink tab is selected and click Generate.
  5. In the dialog, enter the configuration of the MQ Sink connector.
  6. Click Download to generate and download the configuration file with the supplied fields.
  7. Open the downloaded configuration file and change the values of mq.user.name and mq.password to the username and password that you used to configure your instance of MQ. Also set the label eventstreams.ibm.com/cluster to the name of your Kafka Connect instance.

Using the CLI

Use the Event Streams CLI to generate and download the KafkaConnector custom resource YAML file for your IBM MQ sink connector. You can also use the CLI to generate a JSON file for distributed mode.

  1. Initialize the Event Streams CLI by following the instructions in logging in.

  2. Run the following command to initialize the Event Streams CLI on the cluster:

    kubectl es init

  3. Run the connector-config-mq-sink command to generate the configuration file for the MQ Sink connector.

    For example, to generate a configuration file for an instance of MQ with the following information: a queue manager called QM1, with a connection point of localhost(1414), a channel name of MYSVRCONN, a queue of MYQSINK and connecting to the topics TSINK, run the following command:

    kubectl es connector-config-mq-sink --mq-queue-manager="QM1" --mq-connection-name-list="localhost(1414)" --mq-channel="MYSVRCONN" --mq-queue="MYQSINK" --topics="TSINK" --file="mq-sink" --format yaml

    Note: Omitting the --format yaml flag will generate a mq-sink.properties file which can be used for standalone mode. Specifying --format json will generate a mq-sink.json file which can be used for distributed mode outside OpenShift Container Platform.

  4. Change the values of mq.user.name and mq.password to the username and password that you used to configure your instance of MQ. Also set the label eventstreams.ibm.com/cluster to the name of your Kafka Connect instance.

The final configuration file will resemble the following:

apiVersion: eventstreams.ibm.com/v1beta2
kind: KafkaConnector
metadata:
  name: mq-sink
  labels:
    # The eventstreams.ibm.com/cluster label identifies the KafkaConnect instance
    # in which to create this connector. That KafkaConnect instance
    # must have the eventstreams.ibm.com/use-connector-resources annotation
    # set to true.
    eventstreams.ibm.com/cluster: <kafka_connect_name>
spec:
  class: com.ibm.eventstreams.connect.mqsink.MQSinkConnector
  tasksMax: 1
  config:
    topics: TSINK
    mq.queue.manager: QM1
    mq.connection.name.list: localhost(1414)
    mq.channel.name: MYSVRCONN
    mq.queue: MYQSINK
    mq.user.name: alice
    mq.password: passw0rd
    key.converter: org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter
    value.converter: org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter
    mq.message.builder: com.ibm.eventstreams.connect.mqsink.builders.DefaultMessageBuilder

A list of all the possible flags can be found by running the command kubectl es connector-config-mq-sink --help. For all available configuration options for IBM MQ sink connector, see connecting to IBM MQ.

Downloading the MQ sink connector v2

Follow the instructions to download the MQ sink connector v2 from IBM Fix Central.

  1. Go to IBM Fix Central. If you are on the Select fixes page, you can skip to step 6.
  2. In the Find Product > Product selector, enter IBM Event Automation.
  3. In the Installed version, select a specific version of IBM Event Automation or select All to list products in all the versions.
  4. In the Platform, select All, and then click Continue.
  5. In the Identify Fixes page, select Browse for fixes, and then click Continue. The available connectors are listed in the Select fixes page.
  6. Select the MQ sink connector version you want to download and click Continue. For example, kafka-connect-mq-sink-2.0.0. The download page opens with the default download option.
  7. In your preferred download option, click the connector (for example, kafka-connect-mq-sink-2.0.0.jar) to download the connector.

The connector JAR file is downloaded.

Important: To use the Kafka Connect Build capability for setting this connector, you must upload the JAR to a location that is accessible from the cluster, and provide the URL in the Kafka Connect custom resource.

Configuring Kafka Connect

Set up your Kafka Connect environment as described in setting up connectors. When adding connectors, add the MQ connector JAR you downloaded, add connector dependencies, and when starting the connector, use the Kafka Connect YAML file you created earlier.

Adding connector dependencies

By default, IBM MQ sink connector v2 does not package any external dependencies. Follow the instructions in setting up connectors to add your dependencies.

Add the following dependencies to IBM MQ sink connector v2:

artifactId groupId version
connect-api org.apache.kafka >= 3.4.1
connect-json org.apache.kafka >= 3.4.1
jackson-databind com.fasterxml.jackson.core >= 2.14.3
javax.jms-api javax.jms >= 2.0.1
com.ibm.mq.allclient com.ibm.mq >= 9.3.3.1
slf4j-api org.slf4j >= 2.0.7
jackson-databind com.fasterxml.jackson.core >= 2.14.3
jackson-core com.fasterxml.jackson.core >= 2.14.3
jackson-annotations com.fasterxml.jackson.core >= 2.14.3
json org.json >= 20230618

Verifying the log output

Verify the log output of Kafka Connect includes the following messages that indicate the connector task has started and successfully connected to IBM MQ:

$ kubectl logs <kafka_connect_pod_name>
...
INFO Created connector mq-sink
...
INFO Connection to MQ established
...

Send a test message

To test the connector you will need an application to produce events to your topic.

  1. Log in to the Event Streams UI from a supported web browser (see how to determine the login URL for your Event Streams UI).
  2. Click Toolbox in the primary navigation.
  3. Go to the Starter application tile under Applications, and click Get started.
  4. Click Download JAR from GitHUb. Download the JAR file from the list of assets for the latest release.
  5. Click Generate properties.
  6. Enter a name for the application.
  7. Go to the Existing topic tab and select the topic you provided in the MQ connector configuration.
  8. Click Generate and download .zip.
  9. Follow the instructions in the UI to get the application running.

Verify the message is on the queue:

  1. Navigate to the UI of the sample application you generated earlier and start producing messages to Event Streams.

  2. Use the amqsget sample to get messages from the MQ queue:

    /opt/mqm/samp/bin/amqsget <queue_name> <queue_manager_name>

    After a short delay, the messages are printed.

Exactly-once message delivery semantics in IBM MQ sink connector v2

The IBM MQ sink connector v1 provides at-least-once message delivery by default. This means that each Kafka message is delivered to IBM MQ, but in failure scenarios it is possible to have duplicated messages delivered to IBM MQ.

IBM MQ sink connector v2 offers exactly-once message delivery semantics. An additional IBM MQ queue is used to store the state of message deliveries. When exactly-once delivery is enabled, Kafka messages are delivered to IBM MQ with no duplicated messages.

Follow the instructions to enable exactly-once delivery in the IBM MQ sink connector v2.

Important: Exactly-once support for sink connectors is only available in distributed mode.

Prerequisites

Ensure the following values are set in your environment before you enable the exactly-once behavior:

  • Configure the consumer group of the sink connector to ignore records in aborted transactions. You can find detailed instructions in the Kafka documentation. Notably, this configuration does not have any additional Access Control List (ACL) requirements.
  • The IBM MQ sink connector v2 is only supported on Kafka Connect version 2.6.0 or later.
  • On the server-connection channel (SVRCONN) used for Kafka Connect, set HBINT to 30 seconds to allow IBM MQ transaction rollbacks to occur more quickly in failure scenarios.
  • On the state queue (the queue where the state messages are stored), set DEFSOPT to EXCL to ensure the state queue share option is exclusive.
  • Ensure that the messages that are sent through the MQ sink connector v2 do not expire, and that all the messages on the state queue are persistent.

Enabling exactly-once delivery

Configure the following properties to enable exactly-once delivery:

  • The IBM MQ sink connector v2 must be configured with the mq.exactly.once.state.queue property set to the name of a pre-configured IBM MQ queue on the same queue manager as the sink IBM MQ queue.

  • Only a single connector task can be run. As a consequence, the tasks.max property must be left unset, or set to 1.

  • Ensure that the state queue is empty each time exactly-once delivery is enabled (especially when re-enabling the exactly-once feature). Otherwise, the connector behaves in the same way as when recovering from a failure state, and attempts to get undelivered messages recorded in the out-of-date state message.

After enabling exactly-once delivery, Kafka messages are delivered to IBM MQ with no duplicated messages.

Creating a state queue in IBM MQ by using the runmqsc tool

A state message is the message stored in the state queue, and contains the last offset information. A state queue is a queue in IBM MQ that stores the last offset of the message transferred from Kafka to MQ. The last offset information is used to resume the transfer in case of a failure. When a failure occurs, the connector collects the information and continues to transfer messages from the point where the connector is interrupted.

Create a state queue as follows.

Important: Each connector instance must have its own state queue.

  1. Start the runmqsc tool by running the following command:

    runmqsc <QMGR_NAME>

    Replace <QMGR_NAME> with the name of the queue manager you want to work with.

  2. Enter the following command to create a queue:

    DEFINE QLOCAL (<STATE_QUEUE_NAME>) DEFSOPT (EXCL)

    Where:

    • <STATE_QUEUE_NAME> is the name of the state queue.
    • Set DEFSOPT to EXCL to ensure the state queue share option is exclusive.

    Wait for the queue to be created.

  3. Stop the runmqsc tool by entering the commandEND.

Note: If the sink connector is delivering messages to an IBM MQ for z/OS shared queue, then for performance reasons, the state queue should be placed on the same coupling facility structure.

Enabling MQMD in IBM MQ sink connector v2

You can configure the IBM MQ sink connector v2 to add values to the MQ message descriptor (MQMD). The MQMD is used to add additional control information to accompany the message data before sending to MQ.

Prerequisites

Adding values to the MQMD is only supported in the IBM MQ sink connector v2, which is only supported on Kafka Connect version 2.6.0 or later.

Enabling MQMD

Configure the following properties in the KafkaConnector custom resource to enable adding values to the MQMD:

  1. Set the mq.message.mqmd.write property to true in the IBM MQ sink connector v2. By default, it is set to false.

  2. Configure the mq.message.mqmd.context property according to the message context. Options include:

    • ALL, which corresponds to WMQ_MDCTX_SET_ALL_CONTEXT
    • IDENTITY, mapped to WMQ_MDCTX_SET_IDENTITY_CONTEXT

    Important: If your message contains any of the following properties, you must ensure that WMQ_MQMD_MESSAGE_CONTEXT is set to either WMQ_MDCTX_SET_IDENTITY_CONTEXT or WMQ_MDCTX_SET_ALL_CONTEXT:

    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_UserIdentifier
    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_AccountingToken
    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_ApplIdentityData

    Similarly, if your message includes any of the following properties, set the WMQ_MQMD_MESSAGE_CONTEXT field to WMQ_MDCTX_SET_ALL_CONTEXT:

    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_PutApplType
    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_PutApplName
    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_PutDate
    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_PutTime
    • JMS_IBM_MQMD_ApplOriginData

    Other message properties do not require the mq.message.mqmd.context property.

Creating a custom message builder

The MQ sink connector v2 uses the default message builder to write messages to MQ. You can also create a custom message builder to tailor message properties based on your specific requirements.

For example, complete the following steps to create a custom message builder that overrides values of MQMD fields such as JMS_IBM_MQMD_USERIDENTIFIER, JMS_IBM_MQMD_APPLIDENTITYDATA, and JMS_IBM_MQMD_PERSISTENCE for outgoing messages:

  1. Create a Java class called CustomMessageDescriptorBuilder that extends the DefaultMessageBuilder provided by the MQ sink connector v2. The CustomMessageDescriptorBuilder class is the custom message builder.

    // CustomMessageDescriptorBuilder.java
import javax.jms.JMSContext;
import javax.jms.JMSException;
import javax.jms.Message;
import org.apache.kafka.connect.errors.ConnectException;
import org.apache.kafka.connect.sink.SinkRecord;
import com.ibm.eventstreams.connect.mqsink.builders.DefaultMessageBuilder;
import com.ibm.msg.client.jms.JmsConstants;

public class CustomMessageDescriptorBuilder extends DefaultMessageBuilder {

   @Override
   public Message getJMSMessage(final JMSContext jmsCtxt, final SinkRecord record) {
      final Message message = super.getJMSMessage(jmsCtxt, record);
      try {
            // Override properties
            message.setStringProperty(JmsConstants.JMS_IBM_MQMD_USERIDENTIFIER, "Sample User");
            message.setStringProperty(JmsConstants.JMS_IBM_MQMD_APPLIDENTITYDATA, String.format("{}-{}-{}", record.topic(), record.kafkaOffset(), record.kafkaPartition()));
            // Set persistence based on message content
            if (message.getBody(String.class).startsWith("PRIORITY")) {
               message.setIntProperty(JmsConstants.JMS_IBM_MQMD_PERSISTENCE, MQConstants.MQPER_PERSISTENT);
            } else {
               message.setIntProperty(JmsConstants.JMS_IBM_MQMD_PERSISTENCE, MQConstants.MQPER_NOT_PERSISTENT);
            }
      } catch (final JMSException e) {
            throw new ConnectException("Failed to write property", e);
      }
      return message;
   }
}

  2. In the getJMSMessage() method, override the values of MQMD properties based on your requirements. In the earlier example, JMS_IBM_MQMD_USERIDENTIFIER and JMS_IBM_MQMD_APPLIDENTITYDATA properties are set with sample values, and the JMS_IBM_MQMD_PERSISTENCE property is set based on the message content.

  3. Package your custom message builder into a JAR file along with any dependencies it might have. Ensure that this JAR file is placed in a folder alongside the connector JAR file:

    mq-sink-connector/
|-- ibm-mq-sink-connector.jar
|-- custom-message-builder.jar

  4. Configure the IBM MQ sink connector v2 to use your custom message builder class. Specify the class name of your custom message builder in the connector configuration:

    mq.message.builder=<name-of-custom-message-builder>
mq.message.body.jms=true
mq.message.mqmd.write=true
mq.message.mqmd.context=ALL
# ...

    Where <name-of-custom-message-builder> is the name of your custom message builder.