Configuring ActiveMQ

Easily configure and manage your ActiveMQ brokers for enterprise-grade monitoring with Nodinite. This guide walks you through adding, enabling, disabling, and removing brokers, setting queue thresholds, applying RegEx filters, and managing authentication for secure, flexible, and proactive monitoring.

✅ Add, enable, disable, or remove any number of ActiveMQ brokers
✅ Set global and specific queue thresholds for proactive alerting
✅ Apply RegEx-based queue exclusions for fine-grained control
✅ Secure connections with robust authentication options

Info

Before any monitoring and remote configuration can be performed, you must first install the Message Queueing Monitoring Agent and create a Monitoring Agent Configuration. First-time users start here.

From the ActiveMQ tab, you can manage any number of ActiveMQ brokers, each with its own set of properties.
To monitor and control one or more ActiveMQ brokers, provide the required connection details.

Example showing how to add an ActiveMQ monitoring entry.

Configuring the connection

• Add ActiveMQ broker
• Remove ActiveMQ broker
• Enable ActiveMQ broker
• Disable ActiveMQ broker
• Manage Queue thresholds
• Authentication
• Advanced settings

Remember to click on the Save button to persist changes. It may take some time (depending on the user-defined synchronization interval) for Nodinite to reflect changes.

Add ActiveMQ broker

Click the Add button to add a new ActiveMQ broker to monitor. Repeat as needed.

Example showing an ActiveMQ configuration accordion.

Example showing the Basic tab of an ActiveMQ configuration.

• Enable ActiveMQ monitoring - When checked, this specific ActiveMQ configuration will be monitored
• Configuration name - User-friendly name for this ActiveMQ connection. Also becomes the default Application name for all monitored Resources.
• Description - (optional) User-friendly short description for this configuration.
• Connection String - The connection string used by the Message Queueing Monitoring Agent to connect to the ActiveMQ broker.

Remove ActiveMQ broker

Click the Remove button to remove the configuration for monitoring the ActiveMQ broker and its queue Resources.

Remove an ActiveMQ broker from monitoring.

Instead of removing an ActiveMQ broker, you can simply disable monitoring to keep your configuration for later use.

Enable ActiveMQ broker

A disabled Monitoring Configuration is clearly marked with a ban sign. Only disabled brokers can be Enabled.

Disabled ActiveMQ broker is marked with a ban sign.

Click the checkbox to re-enable monitoring of ActiveMQ broker related Resources.

Example of enabling ActiveMQ broker monitoring (no ban sign).

Disable ActiveMQ broker

You can stop monitoring the ActiveMQ broker without removing the configuration by disabling the selected configuration. An enabled Monitoring Configuration does not have the ban sign. Only enabled ActiveMQ brokers can be Disabled.

Example of an enabled ActiveMQ broker (no ban sign).

Un-check the checkbox to disable monitoring of ActiveMQ broker related Resources.

Manage Queue thresholds

From within the Thresholds tab, you can manage queue thresholds and exclusions for all queues on the ActiveMQ broker.

• Global Settings
• Specific queue settings
• Queue exclusions filter

Global Settings

Global settings are used for evaluations of the queues if not specific settings have been set.

• Queue thresholds:
  • Number-based evaluation
    • Warning Count - 0 means do not evaluate
    • Error Count - 0 means do not evaluate
  • Time-based evaluation
    • Warning Time Span - Timespan format (days.hours:minutes:seconds)
    • Error Time Span - Timespan format (days.hours:minutes:seconds)
• Queue exclusions filter

Configure queue thresholds and exclusions in the Thresholds tab.

Number-based evaluation

If you select the Fixed option for Count Evaluation Type, monitoring is based on the number of messages in the queue.

0 means do not evaluate

State	Name	Data Type	Description
	Warning Count	integer	The number of messages to go above on the queue to trigger Warning alert
	Error Count	integer	The number of messages to go above on the queue to trigger Error alert

Time-based evaluation

Time-based evaluation is always evaluated. If you do not want to perform evaluation based on time, simply provide long enough thresholds.

Timespan format (days.hours:minutes:seconds)

State	Name	Data Type	Description
	Warning TimeSpan	Timespan 00:05:00 (5 minutes)	The age of first message on the queue to trigger Warning alert
	Error TimeSpan	Timespan 01:10:00 (1 hour 10 minutes)	The age of first message on the queue to trigger Error alert

Specific queue settings

Specific queue settings allow you to apply custom thresholds to individual queues that differ from the global defaults. Use this when certain queues require tighter or looser monitoring than your standard settings.

Note

If the actual queue is removed or changes its name, you must reconfigure the specific configuration accordingly within Nodinite, otherwise, it will still be listed as a Resource in the Unavailable state. You can always remove the specific configuration if no longer needed using the Remote Configuration.

The preferred way to add a specific configuration is via Remote Actions. See the Managing ActiveMQ user guide for details.

Alternatively, add specific configurations directly in the Web Client. From within the Specific queue settings section, click the Add button to add a specific configuration.

Add a specific configuration for a named queue.

Next, expand the accordion.

Expand to configure thresholds for a specific queue.

• Queue name - (mandatory) The exact name of the queue to configure
• Description - (optional) User-friendly short description for this configuration.

All other threshold settings are already documented in the global section.

Specific configurations using Remote Actions are further detailed in the Managing ActiveMQ user guide.

Queue exclusions filter

Resources can be excluded using a RegEx (Regular Expression) based filter. You can Add and Remove as many RegEx expressions as you like to precisely control which queues are monitored.

The Power of Regular Expressions

Regular expressions provide powerful pattern-matching capabilities that go far beyond simple wildcard filters. With regex, you can:

• Exclude specific patterns - Remove queues based on naming conventions (prefixes, suffixes, or patterns)
• Include only matching queues - Use negative lookahead to monitor only queues that match your criteria
• Combine multiple conditions - Chain patterns together for complex filtering logic
• Handle dynamic queue names - Filter based on patterns rather than hardcoded names

Common Exclusion Patterns

Example #1: Remove all queues that start with the letter '_'

^[_].*

Example: Remove all queues starting with the letter '_'

Example #2: Remove all queues that start with 'temp' or 'tmp' (case-insensitive)

^(?i)(temp|tmp).*

Example #3: Remove all queues ending with '.DLQ' or '.Dead'

.*\.(DLQ|Dead)$

Example #4: Remove all queues containing 'test', 'debug', or 'sandbox'

.*(test|debug|sandbox).*

Advanced: Negative Lookahead for Inclusion Filtering

You can invert the logic using negative lookahead to exclude everything that does not match your pattern. This is powerful when you only want to monitor a specific subset of queues.

Example #5: Monitor only queues that contain 'Production'

^((?!Production).)*$

This pattern excludes any queue that doesn't contain "Production" in its name.

Example #6: Monitor only queues starting with 'Invoice', 'Order', or 'Payment'

^(?!(Invoice|Order|Payment)).*

Example #7: Monitor only queues that match a specific naming pattern (e.g., 'APP.ServiceName.QueueName')

^(?!APP\.[A-Za-z]+\.[A-Za-z]+$).*

Understanding Negative Lookahead

The pattern ^((?!PATTERN).)*$ works by:

1. ^ - Starts at the beginning of the queue name
2. (?!PATTERN) - Negative lookahead: fails if PATTERN is found
3. . - Matches any character (if lookahead didn't fail)
4. * - Repeats for the entire string
5. $ - Matches the end of the queue name

Result: Any queue name that contains PATTERN will cause the lookahead to fail, excluding it from the filter. Only queues without PATTERN remain excluded, meaning queues with PATTERN are monitored.

Visual Indication

Whenever you apply one or more filters, the configuration accordion will display a filter icon to indicate filters are in use.

Example showing the filter icon in the configuration accordion.

Testing Your Regex

Tip

Test your regex patterns using online tools like regex101.com before applying them to production monitoring. This helps prevent accidentally excluding critical queues.

Warning

We have had many support incidents with reports of missing queues due to this functionality. If you miss a queue in your Monitor Views, first check your filters. Remember: With great power comes great responsibility.

Authentication

• Use Authentication - When checked, this connection is authenticated using the provided credentials.
  • User name - The name of the 'User' account with proper access rights
  • Password - The password for the user

Example showing the Authentication tab for ActiveMQ broker configuration.

Advanced Settings

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From the Advanced tab, you can configure advanced options for this ActiveMQ broker connection.

Example showing the Advanced tab for ActiveMQ broker configuration.

• Source polling interval - (optional) The polling interval for this specific ActiveMQ broker in seconds. When set, this overrides the global polling interval configured for the Message Queueing Monitoring Agent. It should typically be a multiple of (and not lower than) the global setting.
  • Default value: 60 seconds
  • Recommendation: Use multiples of the global polling interval (e.g., if global is 60 seconds, use 60, 120, 180, etc.)
  • Use case: Set a longer polling interval for less critical ActiveMQ brokers to reduce monitoring overhead, or a shorter interval for critical systems requiring more frequent health checks.

Note

Leaving this field empty (or set to 0) means the global polling interval will be used for this broker.

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Next Step

• Configuration of the agent
  • Configuring MSMQ
  • Configuring Service Bus
• Add or manage Monitor View

Related Topics

Add or manage a Monitoring Agent Configuration
Install Message Queueing Monitoring Agent