A channel is used to used to make a connection to an IBM MQ queue manager, thus each connection will be associated with a channel.

The start channel command can be used to start a channel. In this example, the channel named CHANNEL01 in the queue manager named MANAGER01 will be started.

echo "start channel (CHANNEL01)" | runmqsc MANAGER01

The following should be displayed.

AMQ8018I: Start IBM MQ channel accepted

After the channel has been started, the display chstatus command should have something like RUNNING.

AMQ8417: Display Channel Status details.
  CHANNEL(MANAGER01.CHANNEL01.SVR)    CHLTYPE(SVRCONN)
  CONNAME(10.1.2.3)                   CURRENT
  STATUS(RUNNING)                     SUBSTATE( )