Attention: This version of Event Streams has reached End of Support. For more information about supported versions, see the support matrix.

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 in a Docker container. 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

The connector runs inside the Kafka Connect runtime, which is part of the Apache Kafka distribution. Event Streams does not run connectors as part of its deployment, so you need an Apache Kafka distribution to get the Kafka Connect runtime environment.

Ensure you have the following available:

  • IBM MQ v8 or later installed. Note: These instructions are for IBM MQ v9 running on Linux. If you’re using a different version or platform, you might have to adjust some steps slightly.

Setting up the queue manager

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.

Configuring the connector to connect to MQ

The connector requires details to connect to IBM MQ and to your Event Streams or Apache Kafka cluster. You can generate the sample connector configuration file for Event Streams from either the UI or the CLI. For distributed mode the configuration is in JSON format and in standalone mode it is a .properties file.

The connector connects to IBM MQ using a client connection. You must provide the following connection information for your queue manager:

  • 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 UI to download a .json file which can be used in distributed mode.

  1. Log in to your Event Streams UI.
  2. Click the Toolbox tab and scroll to the Connectors section.
  3. Go to the Connecting to IBM MQ? tile, and click Add connectors.
  4. Click the IBM MQ connectors link.
  5. Ensure the MQ Sink tab is selected and click on the Download MQ Sink Configuration, this will display another window.
  6. Use the relevant fields to alter the configuration of the MQ Sink connector.
  7. Click Download to generate and download the configuration file with the supplied fields.
  8. 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.

Using the CLI

Use the CLI to download a .json or .properties file which can be used in distributed or standalone mode.

  1. Log in to your cluster as an administrator by using the IBM Cloud Private CLI:
    cloudctl login -a https://<Cluster Master Host>:<Cluster Master API Port>
    The master host and port for your cluster are set during the installation of IBM Cloud Private.
  2. Run the following command to initialize the Event Streams CLI on the cluster:
    cloudctl 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: 
    cloudctl 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" --json

    Note: Omitting the --json flag will generate a mq-sink.properties file which can be used for standalone mode.

  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.

The final configuration file will resemble the following:

{
	"name": "mq-sink",
	"config": {
		"connector.class": "com.ibm.eventstreams.connect.mqsink.MQSinkConnector",
		"tasks.max": "1",
		"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",
		"mq.message.builder": "com.ibm.eventstreams.connect.mqsink.builders.DefaultMessageBuilder",
		"key.converter": "org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter",
		"value.converter": "org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter"
	}
}

A list of all the possible flags can be found by running the command cloudctl es connector-config-mq-sink --help. Alternatively, See the sample properties file for a full list of properties you can configure, and also see the GitHub README for all available configuration options.

Downloading the MQ Sink connector

  1. Log in to your Event Streams UI.
  2. Click the Toolbox tab and scroll to the Connectors section.
  3. Go to the Connecting to IBM MQ? tile, and click Add connectors.
  4. Ensure the MQ Sink tab is selected and click on the Download MQ Sink JAR, this will download the MQ Sink JAR file.

Configuring Kafka Connect

Event Streams provides help with getting a Kafka Connect Environment.

Follow the steps in set up Kafka Connect to get Kafka Connect running. When adding connectors add the MQ connector you downloaded earlier.

Verify that the MQ sink connector is available in your Kafka Connect environment:\

$ curl http://localhost:8083/connector-plugins
[{"class":"com.ibm.eventstreams.connect.mqsink.MQSinkConnector","type":"sink","version":"1.1.0"}]

Verify that the connector is running. For example, If you started a connector called mq-sink:\

$ curl http://localhost:8083/connectors
[mq-sink]

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

 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 your Event Streams UI.
  2. Click the Toolbox tab.
  3. Click Generate application under Starter application
  4. Enter a name for the application
  5. Select only Produce messages
  6. Select Choose existing topic and choose the topic you provided in the MQ connector configuration
  7. Click Generate
  8. Once the application has been generated, click Download and 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.

Advanced configuration

For more details about the connector and to see all configuration options, see the GitHub README.