RabbitMQ (message queue service)

RabbitMQ is a message broker that supports multiple messaging protocols, such as the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP). It gives your apps a common platform to send and receive messages and your messages a safe place to live until they’re received.

Supported versions

You can select the major and minor version.

Patch versions are applied periodically for bug fixes and the like. When you deploy your app, you always get the latest available patches.

• 3.13
• 3.12

Deprecated versions

The following versions are deprecated. They’re available, but they aren’t receiving security updates from upstream and aren’t guaranteed to work. They’ll be removed in the future, so migrate to one of the supported versions.

• 3.11
• 3.10
• 3.9
• 3.8
• 3.7
• 3.6
• 3.5

Relationship reference

For each service defined via a relationship to your application, Upsun automatically generates corresponding environment variables within your application container, in the $<RELATIONSHIP-NAME>_<SERVICE-PROPERTY> format.

Here is example information available through the service environment variables themselves, or through the PLATFORM_RELATIONSHIPS environment variable.

RABBITMQ_USERNAME=guest
RABBITMQ_SCHEME=amqp
RABBITMQ_SERVICE=rabbitmq
RABBITMQ_FRAGMENT=
RABBITMQ_EPOCH=0
RABBITMQ_IP=123.456.78.90
RABBITMQ_HOSTNAME=azertyuiopqsdfghjklm.rabbitmq.service._.eu-1.platformsh.site
RABBITMQ_PORT=5672
RABBITMQ_CLUSTER=azertyuiop-main-afdwftq
RABBITMQ_HOST=rabbitmq.internal
RABBITMQ_REL=rabbitmq
RABBITMQ_PATH=
RABBITMQ_QUERY={}
RABBITMQ_PASSWORD=ChangeMe
RABBITMQ_TYPE=rabbitmq:3.13
RABBITMQ_PUBLIC=false
RABBITMQ_HOST_MAPPED=false

{
    "username": "guest",
    "scheme": "amqp",
    "service": "rabbitmq",
    "fragment": null,
    "ip": "123.456.78.90",
    "hostname": "azertyuiopqsdfghjklm.rabbitmq.service._.eu-1.platformsh.site",
    "port": 5672,
    "cluster": "azertyuiopqsdf-main-afdwftq",
    "host": "rabbitmq.internal",
    "rel": "rabbitmq",
    "path": null,
    "query": [],
    "password": "ChangeMe",
    "type": "rabbitmq:3.13",
    "public": false,
    "host_mapped": false
}

# Decode the built-in credentials object variable.
export RELATIONSHIPS_JSON=$(echo $PLATFORM_RELATIONSHIPS | base64 --decode)

# Set environment variables for individual credentials.
export APP_RABBITMQ_HOST="$(echo $RELATIONSHIPS_JSON | jq -r '.rabbitmq[0].host')"

Usage example

1. Configure the service

To define the service, use the rabbitmq type:

services:
    # The name of the service container. Must be unique within a project.
    <SERVICE_NAME>:
        type: rabbitmq:<VERSION>

Note that changing the name of the service replaces it with a brand new service and all existing data is lost. Back up your data before changing the service.

2. Add the relationship

To define the relationship, use the following configuration:

applications:
    # The name of the app container. Must be unique within a project.
    <APP_NAME>:
        # Relationships enable access from this app to a given service.
        # The example below shows simplified configuration leveraging a default service
        # (identified from the relationship name) and a default endpoint.
        # See the Application reference for all options for defining relationships and endpoints.
        relationships:
            <SERVICE_NAME>: 
services:
    # The name of the service container. Must be unique within a project.
    <SERVICE_NAME>:
        type: rabbitmq:<VERSION>

You can define <SERVICE_NAME> as you like, so long as it’s unique between all defined services and matches in both the application and services configuration.

The example above leverages default endpoint configuration for relationships. That is, it uses default endpoints behind-the-scenes, providing a relationship (the network address a service is accessible from) that is identical to the name of that service.

Depending on your needs, instead of default endpoint configuration, you can use explicit endpoint configuration.

With the above definition, the application container (<APP_NAME>) now has access to the service via the relationship <RELATIONSHIP_NAME> and its corresponding service environment variables.

Example Configuration

App and Service configuration

applications:
    # The name of the app container. Must be unique within a project.
    myapp:
        # Relationships enable access from this app to a given service.
        # The example below shows simplified configuration leveraging a default service
        # (identified from the relationship name) and a default endpoint.
        # See the Application reference for all options for defining relationships and endpoints.
        relationships:
            rabbitmq: 

services:
    # The name of the service container. Must be unique within a project.
    rabbitmq:
        type: rabbitmq:3.13

Use in app

To use the configured service in your app, add a configuration file similar to the following to your project.

applications:
    # The name of the app container. Must be unique within a project.
    myapp:
        # The location of the application's code.
        source:
            root: "myapp"
        
        [...]

        # Relationships enable an app container's access to a service.
        relationships:
            rabbitmq:

services:
    # The name of the service container. Must be unique within a project.
    rabbitmq:
        type: rabbitmq:3.13

This configuration defines a single application (myapp), whose source code exists in the <PROJECT_ROOT>/myapp directory.
myapp has access to the rabbitmq service, via a relationship whose name is identical to the service name (as per default endpoint configuration for relationships).

From this, myapp can retrieve access credentials to the service through the relationship environment variables.

# Set environment variables for individual credentials.
# For more information, please visit https://docs.upsun.com/development/variables.html#service-environment-variables.
export QUEUE_SCHEME=${RABBITMQ_SCHEME}
export QUEUE_USERNAME=${RABBITMQ_USERNAME}
export QUEUE_PASSWORD=${RABBITMQ_PASSWORD}
export QUEUE_HOST=${RABBITMQ_HOST}
export QUEUE_PORT=${RABBITMQ_PORT}

# Set a single RabbitMQ connection string variable for AMQP.
export AMQP_URL="${QUEUE_SCHEME}://${QUEUE_USERNAME}:${QUEUE_PASSWORD}@${QUEUE_HOST}:${QUEUE_PORT}/"

The above file — .environment in the myapp directory — is automatically sourced by Upsun into the runtime environment, so that the variable AMQP_URL can be used within the application to connect to the service.

Note that AMQP_URL, and all Upsun-service environment variables like RABBITMQ_HOST, are environment-dependent. Unlike the build produced for a given commit, they can’t be reused across environments and only allow your app to connect to a single service instance on a single environment.

A file very similar to this is generated automatically for your when using the upsun ify command to migrate a codebase to Upsun.

Connect to RabbitMQ

When debugging, you may want to connect directly to your RabbitMQ service. You can connect in multiple ways:

• An SSH tunnel
• A web interface

In each case, you need the login credentials that you can obtain from the relationship.

Via SSH

To connect directly to your RabbitMQ service in an environment, open an SSH tunnel with the Upsun CLI.

To open an SSH tunnel to your service with port forwarding, run the following command:

upsun tunnel:single --gateway-ports

Then configure a RabbitMQ client to connect to this tunnel using the credentials from the relationship. See a list of RabbitMQ client libraries.

Access the management UI

RabbitMQ offers a management plugin with a browser-based UI. You can access this UI with an SSH tunnel.

To open a tunnel, follow these steps.

1. SSH into your app container with a flag for local port forwarding:

2. ssh $(upsun ssh --pipe) -L 15672:RELATIONSHIP_NAME.internal:15672

   RELATIONSHIP_NAME is the name you defined.

3. Open http://localhost:15672 in your browser. Log in using the username and password from the relationship.

Configuration options

You can configure your RabbitMQ service in the services configuration with the following options:

You can configure additional virtual hosts, which can be useful for separating resources, such as exchanges, queues, and bindings, into their own namespaces. To create virtual hosts, add them to your configuration as in the following example:

services:
    # The name of the service container. Must be unique within a project.
    rabbitmq:
        type: "rabbitmq:3.13"
        configuration:
            vhosts:
                - host1
                - host2

Upgrading

When upgrading RabbitMQ, skipping major versions (e.g. 3.7 -> 3.11) is not supported. Make sure you upgrade sequentially (3.7 -> 3.8 -> 3.9 -> 3.10 -> 3.11) and that each upgrade commit translates into an actual deployment.