Listener port settings
A listener port defines the association between a connection factory, a destination, and a deployed message-driven bean. This association enables deployed message-driven beans associated with the port to retrieve messages from the destination.
Use this panel to view or change the configuration properties of the selected listener port.
From the admin console, click...
Servers > Server Types > WebSphere application servers->server > [Communications] Messaging > Message listener service > [Additional Properties] Listener Ports > listener_port.
Name
The name by which the listener port is known for administrative purposes.
Information Value Data type String Default Null
Initial state
The state that we want the listener port to have when the application server is next restarted
Information Value Data type Enum Units Not applicable Default Started Range
- Started
- When the application server is next started, the listener port is started automatically.
- Stopped
- When the application server is next started, the listener port is not started automatically. If message-driven beans are to use this listener port on the application server, the system administrator must start the port manually or select the Started value of this property then restart the application server.
Description
A description of the listener port, for administrative purposes within IBM WebSphere Application Server.
Information Value Data type String Default Null
Connection factory JNDI name
The JNDI name for the JMS connection factory to be used by the listener port; for example, jms/connFactory1.
Information Value Data type String Default Null
Destination JNDI name
The JNDI name for the destination to be used by the listener port; for example, jms/destn1.
We cannot use a temporary destination for late responses.
Information Value Data type String Default Null
Maximum sessions
The maximum number of concurrent sessions that a listener can have with the JMS server to process messages.
Each session corresponds to a separate listener thread and therefore controls the number of concurrently processed messages. Adjust this parameter when the server does not fully use the available capacity of the machine.
Information Value Data type Integer Units Sessions Default 1 Range 1 through 2147483647 Recommended
- For message concurrency, that is to process multiple messages simultaneously, set this property to a value greater than 1. Keep this value as low as possible to prevent overloading client applications. A good starting point for a 100% JMS workload with short transaction times is 2 to 4 sessions per processor. If longer running transactions exist, we might need more sessions, which should be determined by experimentation.
The total number of sessions specified in the Maximum Sessions property of all configured listener ports must be less than or equal to the number of threads specified for the Maximum Size property of the message listener service thread pool.
Maximum retries
The maximum number of times that the listener tries to deliver a message to a message-driven bean instance before the listener is stopped, in the range 0 through 2147483647.
An IBM MQ queue has a similar property called the BackoutThreshold property. If our listener port is reading from an IBM MQ queue, then the retry limit and the behavior when the limit is reached is determined by whichever of these two properties is set to the lower limit:
- If we exceed the IBM MQ queue BackoutThreshold limit, the message that cannot be delivered is moved to somewhere else by IBM MQ (for example, to the IBM MQ backout requeue queue or the IBM MQ dead letter queue) and the listener port services the next message on the queue. In this case, WAS might not know that the message has not been delivered successfully.
- If we exceed the listener port maximum retries limit, the listener port stops. We then manually intervene to investigate the problem, possibly to remove the message from the IBM MQ queue then restart the listener port.
Information Value Data type Integer Units Retry attempts Default 0 (no retries) Range 0 (no retries) through 2147483647
Maximum messages
The maximum number of messages that the listener can process in one transaction.
If the queue is empty, the listener processes each message when it arrives. Each message is processed within a separate transaction.
For IBM MQ as the JMS provider, if messages start accumulating on the queue then the listener can start processing messages in batches. For third-party messaging providers, this property value is passed to the JMS provider but the effect depends on the JMS provider.
Information Value Data type Integer Units Number of messages Default 1 Range 1 through 2147483647 Recommended For IBM MQ as the JMS provider, to process multiple messages in a single transaction, set this value to more than 1. If messages start accumulating on the queue, a value greater than 1 enables multiple messages to be batch-processed into a single transaction, and eliminates much of the transaction processing costs for JMS messages.
CAUTION:
- If one message in the batch fails processing with an exception, the entire batch of messages is put back on the queue for processing.
- Any resource lock held by any of the interactions for the individual messages are held for the duration of the entire batch.
- Depending on the amount of processing that messages need, and if XA transactions are being used, setting a value greater than 1 can cause the transaction to time out. If an XA transaction does time out routinely because processing multiple messages exceeds the transaction timeout, reduce this property to 1 (to limit processing to one message per transaction) or increase your transaction timeout.
Related:
Message processing in ASF mode and non-ASF mode Message-driven beans - listener port components Migrate a listener port to an activation specification for use with the IBM MQ messaging provider Create a new listener port Configure the message listener service Configure a listener port