Administer listener ports

Use the WebSphere Application Server administrative console to administer listener ports, which each define the association between a connection factory, a destination, and a message-driven bean.

To use message-driven beans with a messaging provider that does not have a JCA Version 1.5 or 1.6 resource adapter, we cannot use activation specifications and therefore configure beans against a listener port. There are also a few scenarios in which, although we could use activation specifications, we might still choose to use listener ports. For example, for compatibility with existing message-driven bean applications.

If we have existing message-driven beans that use the IBM MQ messaging provider (or a compliant third-party JMS provider) with listener ports, and instead we want to use EJB 3 message-driven beans with listener ports, these new beans can continue to use the same messaging provider.

For more information about when to use listener ports rather than activation specifications, see Message-driven beans, activation specifications, and listener ports.

(ZOS) Before configuring message listener resources, consider the message listener service implementation on the z/OS platform, which affects how we should configure your listener port. See (ZOS) Message listener service on z/OS.

A listener port defines the association between a connection factory, a destination, and a deployed message-driven bean. If we set the initial state of a listener port to Started, the listener port is started automatically when a message-driven bean associated with that port is installed.

Listener ports can be manually started and stopped. If a message-driven bean fails to process a message several times, the listener port is automatically stopped by the application server. When a listener port is stopped, the listener manager stops the listeners for all message-driven beans associated with the port. Consequently, the associated message-driven beans can no longer process messages.

We do not usually need to start or stop a listener port manually.

Tasks

• Create a new listener port.

  Create a new listener port, to specify a new association between a connection factory, a destination, and a message-driven bean. This association enables deployed message-driven beans associated with the port to retrieve messages from the destination.

• Configure a listener port.

  Browse or change the configuration properties of a listener port.

• Start a listener port.
• Stop a listener port.
• Delete a listener port.

Subtopics

• Create a new listener port
  Create a new listener port for the message listener service to define the association between a connection factory, a destination, and a deployed message-driven bean. This association enables the message-driven bean to retrieve messages from the associated destination.
• Configure a listener port
  Use this task to browse or change the properties of an existing listener port, which is used by message-driven beans associated with the port to retrieve messages.
• Starting a listener port
  Use this task to start a listener port on an application server, to enable the listeners for message-driven beans associated with the port to retrieve messages.
• Stopping a listener port
  Use this task to stop a listener port on an application server, to prevent the listeners for message-driven beans associated with the port from retrieving messages.
• Delete a listener port
  Use this task to delete a listener port from the message listener service, to prevent message-driven beans associated with the port from retrieving messages.
• Monitor server session pools for listener ports
  We can minimize the number of resources that server sessions use by enabling server session pool monitoring and defining the timeout value to be applied to a server session.

Related:

Message-driven beans - listener port components

Message-driven beans, activation specifications, and listener ports

Migrate a listener port to an activation specification for use with the IBM MQ messaging provider

Deploy an enterprise application to use message-driven beans with listener ports

(ZOS) Message listener service on z/OS