Chapter 20. Message Expiry

Messages can be set with an optional time to live (TimeToLive) when sending them.
HornetQ will not deliver a message to a consumer after its time to live has been exceeded. If the message has not been delivered before the time to live is reached, the server can discard it.
HornetQ addresses can be assigned an expiry address so when messages are expired, the addresses are removed from the queue and sent to the expiry address. Many different queues can be bound to an expiry address. These expired messages can later be consumed for further inspection.

20.1. Message Expiry

Using HornetQ Core API, you can set an expiration time directly on the message:
// message will expire in 5000ms from now
message.setExpiration(System.currentTimeMillis() + 5000);
JMS MessageProducer allows you to set a TimeToLive for the messages it sent:
// messages sent by this producer will be retained for 5s (5000ms) before expiration           
producer.setTimeToLive(5000);
Expired messages which are consumed from an expiry address have the following properties:
HQ_ORIG_ADDRESS
a String property containing the original address of the expired message
HQ_ACTUAL_EXPIRY
a Long property containing the actual expiration time of the expired message