Using Hermes to Browse WebLogic Topics/Queues

Hermes is a useful tool which allows you to browse JMS topics and queues. I use WebLogic as my JMS provider and it was not trivial trying to connect to my topic using Hermes, so I thought I'd post instructions to help others trying to do the same.

Here are the steps you need to take, in order to browse WebLogic queues and topics using Hermes:

1. Install HermesJMS

• Download Hermes from here.
• It comes as an installer jar file which you can run using the command: java -jar hermes-installer-1.13.jar.
• Once installed, start it using hermes.bat.

2. Add WebLogic Provider
You need to add the weblogic jar to the classpath as follows:

• On the menubar go to Actions > New > New session... to open the Preferences dialog.
• Click on the Providers tab.
• Right-click to Add Group and call it "weblogic92", for example.
• Right-click on Library to Add JAR(s) and select your weblogic jar file from the file chooser dialog.
• Select Don't Scan when prompted to scan the jar file.
• Click Apply and close the dialog.

3. Create WebLogic Session

• On the menubar go to Actions > New > New session... to open the Preferences dialog.
• Click on the Sessions tab.
• Type a name for the session. For example, "myweblogic".
• In the Plug In list select BEA WebLogic.
• Under Connection Factory class, pick hermes.JNDITopicConnectionFactory.
• Select weblogic92 (defined in step 2) from the Loader dropdown.
• Add property: initialContextFactory with a value of weblogic.jndi.WLInitialContextFactory.
• Add property: providerURL with a value of your URL e.g. t3://myhost:2120.
• Add property: binding with a value of the name of your connection factory e.g. myConnectionFactory.
• Add any other properties you may have e.g. securityCredentials etc.
• Remove all Destinations by right-clicking and selecting Remove.
• Press OK.

4. Discover Topics/Queues

• On the left navigation tree, go into jms > sessions > myweblogic.
• Right-click "myweblogic" (the new session created in step 3), and click Discover. You will see a list of queues and topics appear.
• Click on any one of them to browse.