Yet Another James Green Web Developer, Aquarist

Apache ActiveMQ on Ubuntu

I have been frustrated at the lack of Ubuntu support for Apache ActiveMQ. Essentially it works, providing you don't mind manually starting it, then ctrl+x to stop it.

NOTE: An updated page integrating a new ActiveMQ-supplied script has been published.

So I have taken the skeleton init.d script and adapted it to make use of the supplied java wrapper. Here it is:

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          Apache ActiveMQ
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Apache ActiveMQ Messageing Queue
# Description:       Manages the Apache ActiveMQ messaging queue java daemon
### END INIT INFO

# Author: James Green <james.mk.green@gmail.com>

# Do NOT "set -e"

# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
DESC="Apache Messaging Queue"
NAME=activemq
DIR=/usr/share/activemq
BIN_DIR=$DIR/bin/linux-x86-32
DAEMON=$BIN_DIR/$NAME
DAEMON_START="start xbean:conf/activemq.xml"
DAEMON_STOP="stop"
PIDFILE=$BIN_DIR/ActiveMQ.pid
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME

# Exit if the package is not installed
[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0

# Read configuration variable file if it is present
[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
. /lib/init/vars.sh

# Define LSB log_* functions.
# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is present.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

cd $DIR

#
# Function that starts the daemon/service
#
do_start()
{
 # Return
 #   0 if daemon has been started
 #   1 if daemon was already running
 #   2 if daemon could not be started
 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
 || return 1
 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
 $DAEMON_START \
 || return 2
 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
 # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
}

#
# Function that stops the daemon/service
#
do_stop()
{
 # Return
 #   0 if daemon has been stopped
 #   1 if daemon was already stopped
 #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
 #   other if a failure occurred
 #start-stop-daemon --stop --name $NAME --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_STOP
 RETVAL="$?"
 $DAEMON stop
 [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
 # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
 # sleep for some time.
 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
 [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
 # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
 rm -f $PIDFILE
 return "$RETVAL"
}

#
# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
#
do_reload() {
 #
 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
 # then implement that here.
 #
 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 return 0
}

case "$1" in
 start)
 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
 do_start
 case "$?" in
 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 esac
 ;;
 stop)
 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
 do_stop
 case "$?" in
 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 esac
 ;;
 status)
 status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
 ;;
 #reload|force-reload)
 #
 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
 # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
 #
 #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
 #do_reload
 #log_end_msg $?
 #;;
 restart|force-reload)
 #
 # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
 # 'force-reload' alias
 #
 log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
 do_stop
 case "$?" in
 0|1)
 do_start
 case "$?" in
 0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
 1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
 *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
 esac
 ;;
 *)
 # Failed to stop
 log_end_msg 1
 ;;
 esac
 ;;
 *)
 #echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
 echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
 exit 3
 ;;
esac

:

You will clearly need to adjust your path to match your local environment, add an activemq user account (--disabled-password) and chown the data directory appropriately. Needless to say, use -64 instead of -32 on your 64-bit production servers.

It worked for me using 10.04. Remember that Ubuntu are moving to Upstart so natually an event file would be nice, but for now this gets us started.