Broker configuration properties related to file-based persistence are listed under File-Based Persistence Properties. These properties let you configure various aspects of how the file-based data store behaves.

All persistent data other than messages is stored in separate files: one file each for destinations, durable subscriptions, and transaction state information. Most messages are stored in a single file consisting of variable-size records. You can compact this file to alleviate fragmentation as messages are added and removed (see Managing Physical Destination Disk Utilization). In addition, messages above a certain threshold size are stored in their own individual files rather than in the variable-sized record file. You can configure this threshold size with the broker property imq.persist.file.message.max_record_size.

The broker maintains a file pool for these individual message files: instead of being deleted when it is no longer needed, a file is returned to the pool of free files in its destination directory so that it can later be reused for another message. The broker property imq.persist.file.destination.message.filepool.limit specifies the maximum number of files in the pool. When the number of individual message files for a destination exceeds this limit, files will be deleted when no longer needed instead of being returned to the pool.

When returning a file to the file pool, the broker can save time at the expense of storage space by simply tagging the file as available for reuse without deleting its previous contents. You can use the imq.persist.file.message.filepool.cleanratio broker property to specify the percentage of files in each destination’s file pool that should be maintained in a "clean" (empty) state rather than simply marked for reuse. The higher you set this value, the less space will be required for the file pool, but the more overhead will be needed to empty the contents of files when they are returned to the pool. If the broker’s imq.persist.file.message.cleanup property is true, all files in the pool will be emptied at broker shutdown, leaving them in a clean state; this conserves storage space but slows down the shutdown process.

In writing data to the data store, the operating system has some leeway in whether to write the data synchronously or "lazily" (asynchronously). Lazy storage can lead to data loss in the event of a system crash, if the broker believes the data to have been written to the data store when it has not. To ensure absolute reliability (at the expense of performance), you can require that all data be written synchronously by setting the broker property imq.persist.file.sync.enabled to true. In this case, the data is guaranteed to be available when the system comes back up after a crash, and the broker can reliably resume operation.

A file-based data store is automatically created when you create a broker instance. However, you can configure the data store using the properties described in File-Based Persistence Properties.

For example, by default, Message Queue performs asynchronous write operations to disk. However, to attain the highest reliability, you can set the broker property imq.persist.file.sync to write data synchronously instead. See Table 17-6.

When you start a broker instance, you can use the imqbrokerd command’s -- reset option to clear the file-based data store. For more information about this option and its suboptions, see Broker Utility.

The persistent data store can contain, among other information, message files that are being temporarily stored. Since these messages may contain proprietary information, it is important to secure the data store against unauthorized access. This section describes how to secure data in a file-based data store.

A broker using file-based persistence writes persistent data to a flat-file data store:

where instanceName is a name identifying the broker instance. This directory is created when the broker instance is started for the first time. The procedure for securing this directory depends on the operating system platform on which the broker is running:

Because many activities can occur during a transaction, persisting a transaction’s state over the complete life cycle of the transaction can adversely affect overall performance, especially when the imq.persist.file.sync.enabled property is set to true to avoid data loss in case of a system crash.

Message Queue provides a transaction logging mechanism that can improve performance of transaction persistence. This transaction log offers tuning parameters that can improve performance of file-based persistence for other objects, such as message payloads.

To enable this transaction logging mechanism, set the imq.persist.file.newTxnLogenabled broker property to true.

After enabling the transaction log, essential changes to the state of a JMS transaction are written to the transaction log. When the transaction is committed, all details regarding it are gathered and written to the persistent store. Additionally, the logging mechanism periodically performs a "checkpoint" operation to ensure that the persistent store and the transaction log are synchronized and that the log size remains manageable.

As a further refinement, the operation of the logging mechanism is subject to the value of the imq.persist.file.sync.enabled broker property:

The tuning parameters supported by the transaction logging mechanism are:

Information about these parameters can be found in Table 17-7.

The full set of properties for configuring a broker to use a JDBC database are listed in Table 17-8. You can specify these properties either in the instance configuration file (config.properties) of each broker instance or by using the -D command line option to the Broker utility (imqbrokerd) or the Database Manager utility (imqdbmgr).

In practice, however, JDBC properties are preconfigured by default, depending on the database vendor being used for the data store. The property values are set in the default.properties file, and only need to be explicitly set if you are overriding the default values. In general, you only need to set the following properties:

Example 8-1 Broker Properties for MySQL Database

If you expect to have messages that are larger than 1 MB, configure MySQL’s max_allowed_packet variable accordingly when starting the database. For more information see Appendix B of the MySQL 5.0 Reference Manual.

In addition, in an enhanced broker cluster, in which a JDBC database is shared by multiple broker instances, each broker must be uniquely identified in the database (unnecessary for an embedded database, which stores data for only one broker instance). The configuration property imq.brokerid specifies a unique instance identifier to be appended to the names of database tables for each broker. See Enhanced Broker Cluster Properties.

After setting all of the broker’s needed JDBC configuration properties, you must also install your JDBC driver’s .jar file in IMQ_HOME/lib/ext and then create the database schema for the JDBC-based data store (see To Set Up a JDBC-Based Data Store).

To configure a broker to use a JDBC database, you set JDBC-related properties in the broker’s instance configuration file and create the appropriate database schema. The Message Queue Database Manager utility (imqdbmgr) uses your JDBC driver and the broker configuration properties to create the schema and manage the database. You can also use the Database Manager to delete corrupted tables from the database or if you want to use a different database as a data store. See Database Manager Utility for more information.

The persistent data store can contain, among other information, message files that are being temporarily stored. Since these messages may contain proprietary information, it is important to secure the data store against unauthorized access. This section describes how to secure data in a JDBC-based data store.

A broker using JDBC-based persistence writes persistent data to a JDBC-compliant database. For a database managed by a database server (such as Oracle), it is recommended that you create a user name and password to access the Message Queue database tables (tables whose names start with MQ). If the database does not allow individual tables to be protected, create a dedicated database to be used only by Message Queue brokers. See the documentation provided by your database vendor for information on how to create user name/password access.

The user name and password required to open a database connection by a broker can be provided as broker configuration properties. However it is more secure to provide them as command line options when starting up the broker, using the imqbrokerd command’s -dbuser`and `-dbpassword options (see Broker Utility).

For an embedded database that is accessed directly by the broker by means of the database’s JDBC driver, security is usually provided by setting file permissions on the directory where the persistent data will be stored, as described above under Securing a File-Based Data Store To ensure that the database is readable and writable by both the broker and the Database Manager utility, however, both should be run by the same user.