activemq-artemis/docs/quickstart-guide/en/running.md

Creating a Broker Instance

A broker instance is the directory containing all the configuration and runtime data, such as logs and data files, associated with a broker process. It is recommended that you do not create the instance directory under ${ACTIVEMQ_HOME}. This separation is encouraged so that you can more easily upgrade when the next version of ActiveMQ is released.

On Unix systems, it is a common convention to store this kind of runtime data under the /var/lib directory. For example, to create an instance at '/var/lib/mybroker', run the following commands in your command line shell:

cd /var/lib
${ACTIVEMQ_HOME}/bin/activemq create mybroker

A broker instance directory will contain the following sub directories:

• bin: holds execution scripts associated with this instance.
• etc: hold the instance configuration files
• data: holds the data files used for storing persistent messages
• log: holds rotating log files
• tmp: holds temporary files that are safe to delete between broker runs

At this point you may want to adjust the default configuration located in the etc directory.

Environment variables are used to provide ease of changing ports, hosts and data directories used and can be found in etc/activemq.profile on linux and etc\activemq.profile.cmd on Windows.

Starting and Stopping a Broker Instance

Assuming you created the broker instance under /var/lib/mybroker all you need to do start running the broker instance is execute:

/var/lib/mybroker/bin/activemq run

Now that the broker is running, you can optionally run some of the included examples to verify the the broker is running properly.

To stop the Apache ActiveMQ instance you will use the same activemq script, but with the stop argument. Example:

/var/lib/mybroker/bin/activemq stop

By default the etc/bootstrap.xml configuration is used. The configuration can be changed e.g. by running ./activemq run -- xml:path/to/bootstrap.xml or another config of your choosing.