# Getting Started

Welcome to Apache ActiveMQ. This document gives you a quick overview of how to get started trying out Apache ActiveMQ.

## Running the broker

From the binary distribution you can run the Apache ActiveMQ server pretty easily via the bin/activemq command. If you're using Windows, just type

        cd bin
        activemq

On Unix-like systems, type

        cd bin
        activemq console

to start the broker in foreground.

The Apache ActiveMQ broker should now have started

## Running the example programs

To run the demo producer/consumer tools, you need Java and Ant installed.

### Installing Ant

The example programs depend on Ant being installed. There are more detailed instructions on the Ant website - but essentially you need to follow these steps.

- JAVA_HOME must point to your JDK installation, such that $JAVA_HOME/bin contains the java executable and $JAVA_HOME/lib contains some jar files.
- ANT_HOME must point to where you installed Apache Ant (http://ant.apache.org)
- then you need to add $JAVA_HOME/bin and $ANT_HOME/bin to your PATH variable.

To test this is all working, try typing

        java -version
        cd example
        ant -version

### Running the example producer and consumer

Once you've got Java and Ant installed correctly you should be able to run

        cd example
        ant consumer

and in another shell

        cd example
        ant producer

you can specify exact URLs to connect to via command like arguments. e.g.

        ant producer -Durl=tcp://somehost:port