Configure the Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent

We can configure the Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent to connect to an existing IBM MQ infrastructure and enable users to transfer files without needing to install IBM MQ to get the Managed File Transfer functionality.

Before starting

For information about redistributable license terms for the Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent, see IBM MQ Redistributable Components.

• Bindings mode connection to the coordination, command, and agent queue managers, is not supported, we must use client mode connection. When we are issuing commands, we must provide the parameters that are optional when we are using the Managed File Transfer that is installed as part of IBM MQ: queue manager host, port, name, and channel name.
• The following commands are not included:
  • fteCreateCDAgent.cmd
  • fteCreateLogger.cmd
  • fteDeleteLogger.cmd
  • fteMigrateLogger.cmd
  • fteSetLoggerTraceLevel.cmd
  • fteShowLoggerDetails.cmd
  • fteStartLogger.cmd
  • fteStopLogger.cmd

  For a complete list of available commands, see Installed MFT command sets.

• Managed File Transfer Connect:Direct is not supported.
• IBM MQ Explorer is not included.

We must install the following Microsoft libraries on the system to use Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent:

• Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2008
• Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2012

These libraries are available from Microsoft. See The latest supported Visual C++ downloads.

About this task

We can optionally download and configure the Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent to connect to an existing IBM MQ infrastructure to allow users to transfer files between their local environment and the existing IBM MQ infrastructure without the need for them to install IBM MQ. Follow these steps to download and extract the Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent:

Procedure

1. Download the IBM MQ redistributable Managed File Transfer Agents package from Fix Central.
   1. Choose the package for the operating system: The archive or .zip file names describe the file contents and equivalent maintenance levels. For example, for IBM MQ Version 9.2.0, the file names are as follows:
      • 9.2.0.0-IBM-MQFA-Redist-Win64
      • 9.2.0.0-IBM-MQFA-Redist-LinuxX64
      • 9.2.0.0-IBM-MQFA-Redist-LinuxS390X
      • 9.2.0.0-IBM-MQFA-Redist-LinuxPPC64LE

   2. Identify the directory where we want to extract the package, for example:
      • C:\MFTZ
      • /home/MFTZ

2. Extract the contents of the downloaded package:
   • On Windows, use the Windows Explorer tools to extract.
   • On Linux, extract and untar as follows:

     gunzip 9.2.0.0-IBM-MQFA-Redist-LinuxX64.tar.gz

     and then

     tar xvf 9.2.0.0-IBM-MQFA-Redist-LinuxX64.tar

   The following directories are created:

   • bin: Contains all the required MFT commands
   • bin64: Contains required libraries that are needed for Windows 64-bit OS support
   • java: Contains the IBM JRE and IBM MQ libraries
   • licenses: Contains the license files
   • mqft: Contains ant and lib directories that are required for Ant support and for core MFT function support
   • swtag: Contains swidtag file that is required by license managers to identify the installations on the machine

What to do next

• Create the initial configuration for the Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent
  We can configure a Managed File Transfer Agent to connect to an existing IBM MQ configuration.

Parent topic: Configure Managed File Transfer

Related information

• Video: How to install and configure the Redistributable Managed File Transfer Agent (YouTube)
• Possible errors when configuring the Redistributable MFT Agent