General Installation Information

This guide walks you through basic installation and optimization steps for HiveMQ.

For more ways to try out and evaluate HiveMQ such as Docker and AWS, see Getting Started with HiveMQ.

You can download HiveMQ in a convenient ZIP package with all the executable files, initialization scripts, and example configurations you need to successfully install HiveMQ.

The HiveMQ download package contains the following directories:

Folder name Description

bin

Startup scripts and binary files.

conf

Configuration files.

data

Persistent client data and cluster data.

license

One or more HiveMQ license files.

log

All HiveMQ log files.

extensions

All extensions to the HiveMQ installation.

third-party-licenses

License information for third-party libraries.
The conf/examples directory of your HiveMQ installation contains several useful example configuration files.

Installation on Unix-based systems (Linux, BSD, macOS, Unix)

The default installation directory for HiveMQ is /opt/hivemq. The default HiveMQ username is hivemq.

If you install HiveMQ to a different directory or define a custom HiveMQ username, you must update the $HIVEMQ_DIRECTORY and HIVEMQ_USER in the $HIVEMQ_DIRECTORY/bin/start.sh script accordingly.

Some of the following commands require root privileges, log in as root user or use sudo to execute the commands.

  1. Log in as root user

  2. Go to the directory where you want to download and install HiveMQ. In this example, we use /opt.

    cd /opt

  3. On the HiveMQ website, select Download HiveMQ ZIP Archive to get a trial version of HiveMQ.

  4. Copy the provided download link and download HiveMQ

    wget --content-disposition <your download link>

    or

    curl -O -L <your download link>

  5. Extract the files

    unzip hivemq-<version>.zip

  6. Create a HiveMQ symbolic link (symlink)

    ln -s /opt/hivemq-<version> /opt/hivemq

  7. Create a HiveMQ user

    useradd -d /opt/hivemq hivemq

  8. Make scripts executable and change the owner to hivemq user

    chown -R hivemq:hivemq /opt/hivemq-<version>
chown -R hivemq:hivemq /opt/hivemq
cd /opt/hivemq
chmod +x ./bin/run.sh

  9. Adjust the configuration properties to your needs.

    For more information, see Configuration.

  10. Install the Init script (optional)

    For Debian-based Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, or Raspbian that use init.d scripts

    cp /opt/hivemq/bin/init-script/hivemq-debian /etc/init.d/hivemq
chmod +x /etc/init.d/hivemq

    For Linux systems that use a systemd service

    cp /opt/hivemq/bin/init-script/hivemq.service /etc/systemd/system/hivemq.service

    For all other Linux systems

    cp /opt/hivemq/bin/init-script/hivemq /etc/init.d/hivemq
chmod +x /etc/init.d/hivemq

  11. Modify /etc/init.d/hivemq (optional)

    Set the HIVEMQ_HOME and the HIVEMQ_USER variables to the correct values for your system.

    The default values are as follows:

    HIVEMQ_HOME=/opt/hivemq

    HIVEMQ_USER=hivemq

    If you installed HiveMQ on a directory other than /opt/hivemq, point the HIVEMQ_HOME in your Init script to the correct directory. Otherwise, the daemon cannot start correctly.

  12. Start HiveMQ on boot (optional)

    For Debian-based linux such as Debian, Ubuntu, Raspbian

    update-rc.d hivemq defaults

    For Debian-based Linux such Debian, Ubuntu, Raspbian that use systemd

    systemctl enable hivemq

    Debian > 6.0

    insserv hivemq

    CentOS or RHEL

    chkconfig hivemq on

Start HiveMQ

The following instructions show how to start HiveMQ after the installation.

Start HiveMQ manually

  1. Change directory to HiveMQ directory

    cd /opt/hivemq

  2. Execute startup script

    ./bin/run.sh

Start HiveMQ as daemon

  1. Start the daemon

    /etc/init.d/hivemq start

Verify that HiveMQ is running

Check if HiveMQ is listening to the default port for MQTT

netstat -an | grep 1883

If you run HiveMQ as daemon:

/etc/init.d/hivemq status

If you run HiveMQ with systemd:

systemctl status hivemq.service

To debug the HiveMQ startup with systemd, you can inspect the output:

journalctl | grep -i hivemq

Windows systems

Manual installation

  1. Download the latest HiveMQ version from our website

  2. Unpack the hivemq.zip file to C:\hivemq.

Install HiveMQ as a Windows service

Follow these steps to install HiveMQ as a Windows service:

  1. Download the hivemq-windows-service.zip.

  2. Unzip the hivemq-windows-service.zip file.

  3. Copy the windows-service folder to your HiveMQ home folder.

  4. Open the windows-service folder.

  5. Double-click the installService.bat file.

  6. Restart your system.

To install a service, you need administrative rights.
If you currently lack the correct permission level, right-click the installService.bat file and select Run as administrator.

Start HiveMQ

The following instructions show how to start HiveMQ after installing:

Double-click the run.bat file.

Keep in mind that a click with the left mouse button (QuickEdit) stops the output of the command line. When you click the command line before "Started HiveMQT in xxx ms" displays, the HiveMQ start up process pauses. To resume the start up, click the right mouse button. Clicks that occur after the HiveMQ start up is complete do not impact the execution of HiveMQ.

Verify that HiveMQ is running

Check whether HiveMQ is listening on the default port for MQTT, 1883.

Open cmd.exe and run:

netstat -an | find "1883"

Set the heap that HiveMQ uses

The heap that the HiveMQ process uses can be set as a variable in the run.sh file (run.bat on Windows). Add a line with -Xmx to the variables.

Example configuration with a 4 GB heap:

############## VARIABLES
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Xmx4g"

Make the same changes to the recovery.sh file (recovery.bat on Windows).

We recommended that you configure the JVM heap with 50% of the RAM that is available on the system on which you run HiveMQ.

The HiveMQ process can use more RAM than the amount of RAM that you allocate to the JVM heap.

Install a HiveMQ License

To install a HiveMQ license, move the hivemq.lic file that you received with your purchase into the license folder of your HiveMQ installation.

HiveMQ automatically and dynamically recognizes licenses during runtime. There is no need to restart HiveMQ when you add or change your HiveMQ license.

When HiveMQ detects a valid license file, HiveMQ logs a statement similar to the following:

2020-08-20 20:49:44,322 INFO  - Found valid site license (hivemq.lic) issued to XXX for max XXX CPU cores, valid until XXX.

Multiple HiveMQ Licenses

New HiveMQ licenses can be added during runtime. When multiple valid license files are available in a HiveMQ installation, HiveMQ automatically selects the license that allows the highest CPU count.

If multiple valid licenses that allow the same CPU count are present, HiveMQ automatically selects the license that is valid longest.

You do not need to restart HiveMQ when you switch or add licenses during runtime.

Get a HiveMQ license
To obtain a HiveMQ license, contact sales@hivemq.com.