RabbitMQ is an open source general-purpose message broker that is designed for consistent, highly-available messaging scenarios (both synchronous and asynchronous).

Overview of RabbitMQ

Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

helm install my-release oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/rabbitmq

Looking to use RabbitMQ in production? Try VMware Tanzu Application Catalog, the commercial edition of the Bitnami catalog.

This chart bootstraps a RabbitMQ deployment on a Kubernetes cluster using the Helm package manager.

Bitnami charts can be used with Kubeapps for deployment and management of Helm Charts in clusters.

• Kubernetes 1.23+
• Helm 3.8.0+
• PV provisioner support in the underlying infrastructure

To install the chart with the release name my-release:

helm install my-release oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/rabbitmq

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

The command deploys RabbitMQ on the Kubernetes cluster in the default configuration. The Parameters section lists the parameters that can be configured during installation.

Tip: List all releases using helm list

Bitnami charts allow setting resource requests and limits for all containers inside the chart deployment. These are inside the resources value (check parameter table). Setting requests is essential for production workloads and these should be adapted to your specific use case.

To make this process easier, the chart contains the resourcesPreset values, which automatically sets the resources section according to different presets. Check these presets in the bitnami/common chart. However, in production workloads using resourcePreset is discouraged as it may not fully adapt to your specific needs. Find more information on container resource management in the official Kubernetes documentation.

It is strongly recommended to use immutable tags in a production environment. This ensures your deployment does not change automatically if the same tag is updated with a different image.

Bitnami will release a new chart updating its containers if a new version of the main container, significant changes, or critical vulnerabilities exist.

This chart allows you to set your custom affinity using the affinity parameter. Find more information about Pod's affinity in the kubernetes documentation.

As an alternative, you can use of the preset configurations for pod affinity, pod anti-affinity, and node affinity available at the bitnami/common chart. To do so, set the podAffinityPreset, podAntiAffinityPreset, or nodeAffinityPreset parameters.

To horizontally scale this chart once it has been deployed, two options are available:

• Use the kubectl scale command.
• Upgrade the chart modifying the replicaCount parameter.

    replicaCount=3
    auth.password="$RABBITMQ_PASSWORD"
    auth.erlangCookie="$RABBITMQ_ERLANG_COOKIE"

NOTE: It is mandatory to specify the password and Erlang cookie that was set the first time the chart was installed when upgrading the chart. Otherwise, new pods won't be able to join the cluster.

When scaling down the solution, unnecessary RabbitMQ nodes are automatically stopped, but they are not removed from the cluster. These nodes must be manually removed via the rabbitmqctl forget_cluster_node command.

For instance, if RabbitMQ was initially installed with three replicas and then scaled down to two replicas, run the commands below (assuming that the release name is rabbitmq and the clustering type is hostname):

    kubectl exec rabbitmq-0 --container rabbitmq -- rabbitmqctl forget_cluster_node rabbit@rabbitmq-2.rabbitmq-headless.default.svc.cluster.local
    kubectl delete pvc data-rabbitmq-2

NOTE: It is mandatory to specify the password and Erlang cookie that was set the first time the chart was installed when upgrading the chart.

To enable TLS support, first generate the certificates as described in the RabbitMQ documentation for SSL certificate generation.

Once the certificates are generated, you have two alternatives:

• Create a secret with the certificates and associate the secret when deploying the chart
• Include the certificates in the values.yaml file when deploying the chart

Set the auth.tls.failIfNoPeerCert parameter to false to allow a TLS connection if the client fails to provide a certificate.

Set the auth.tls.sslOptionsVerify to verify_peer to force a node to perform peer verification. When set to verify_none, peer verification will be disabled and certificate exchange won't be performed.

This chart also facilitates the creation of TLS secrets for use with the Ingress controller (although this is not mandatory). There are several common use cases:

• Generate certificate secrets based on chart parameters.
• Enable externally generated certificates.
• Manage application certificates via an external service (like cert-manager).
• Create self-signed certificates within the chart (if supported).

In the first two cases, a certificate and a key are needed. Files are expected in .pem format.

Here is an example of a certificate file:

NOTE: There may be more than one certificate if there is a certificate chain.

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIID6TCCAtGgAwIBAgIJAIaCwivkeB5EMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAMFYxCzAJBgNV
...
jScrvkiBO65F46KioCL9h5tDvomdU1aqpI/CBzhvZn1c0ZTf87tGQR8NK7v7
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Here is an example of a certificate key:

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
MIIEogIBAAKCAQEAvLYcyu8f3skuRyUgeeNpeDvYBCDcgq+LsWap6zbX5f8oLqp4
...
wrj2wDbCDCFmfqnSJ+dKI3vFLlEz44sAV8jX/kd4Y6ZTQhlLbYc=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

• If using Helm to manage the certificates based on the parameters, copy these values into the certificate and key values for a given *.ingress.secrets entry.
• If managing TLS secrets separately, it is necessary to create a TLS secret with name INGRESS_HOSTNAME-tls (where INGRESS_HOSTNAME is a placeholder to be replaced with the hostname you set using the *.ingress.hostname parameter).
• If your cluster has a cert-manager add-on to automate the management and issuance of TLS certificates, add to *.ingress.annotations the corresponding ones for cert-manager.
• If using self-signed certificates created by Helm, set both *.ingress.tls and *.ingress.selfSigned to true.

It is possible to load a RabbitMQ definitions file to configure RabbitMQ. Follow the steps below:

Because definitions may contain RabbitMQ credentials, store the JSON as a Kubernetes secret. Within the secret's data, choose a key name that corresponds with the desired load definitions filename (i.e. load_definition.json) and use the JSON object as the value.

Next, specify the load_definitions property as an extraConfiguration pointing to the load definition file path within the container (i.e. /app/load_definition.json) and set loadDefinition.enable to true. Any load definitions specified will be available within in the container at /app.

NOTE: Loading a definition will take precedence over any configuration done through Helm values.

If needed, you can use extraSecrets to let the chart create the secret for you. This way, you don't need to manually create it before deploying a release. These secrets can also be templated to use supplied chart values. Here is an example:

auth:
  password: CHANGEME
extraSecrets:
  load-definition:
    load_definition.json: |
      {
        "users": [
          {
            "name": "{{ .Values.auth.username }}",
            "password": "{{ .Values.auth.password }}",
            "tags": "administrator"
          }
        ],
        "vhosts": [
          {
            "name": "/"
          }
        ]
      }
loadDefinition:
  enabled: true
  existingSecret: load-definition
extraConfiguration: |
  load_definitions = /app/load_definition.json

LDAP support can be enabled in the chart by specifying the ldap.* parameters while creating a release. For example:

ldap.enabled="true"
ldap.server="my-ldap-server"
ldap.port="389"
ldap.user_dn_pattern="cn=${username},dc=example,dc=org"

If ldap.tls.enabled is set to true, consider using ldap.port=636 and checking the settings in the advancedConfiguration chart parameters.

It is possible to configure a memory high watermark on RabbitMQ to define memory thresholds using the memoryHighWatermark.* parameters. To do so, you have two alternatives:

• Set an absolute limit of RAM to be used on each RabbitMQ node, as shown in the configuration example below:

memoryHighWatermark.enabled="true"
memoryHighWatermark.type="absolute"
memoryHighWatermark.value="512Mi"

• Set a relative limit of RAM to be used on each RabbitMQ node. To enable this feature, define the memory limits at pod level too. An example configuration is shown below:

memoryHighWatermark.enabled="true"
memoryHighWatermark.type="relative"
memoryHighWatermark.value="0.4"
resources.limits.memory="2Gi"

In case you want to add extra environment variables (useful for advanced operations like custom init scripts), you can use the extraEnvVars property.

extraEnvVars:
  - name: LOG_LEVEL
    value: error

Alternatively, you can use a ConfigMap or a Secret with the environment variables. To do so, use the .extraEnvVarsCM or the extraEnvVarsSecret properties.

If you want to create default user/vhost and set the default permission. you can use extraConfiguration:

auth:
  username: default-user
extraConfiguration: |-
  default_vhost = default-vhost
  default_permissions.configure = .*
  default_permissions.read = .*
  default_permissions.write = .*

The Bitnami Docker RabbitMQ image ships a set of plugins by default. By default, this chart enables rabbitmq_management and rabbitmq_peer_discovery_k8s since they are required for RabbitMQ to work on K8s.

To enable extra plugins, set the extraPlugins parameter with the list of plugins you want to enable. In addition to this, the communityPlugins parameter can be used to specify a list of URLs (separated by spaces) for custom plugins for RabbitMQ.

communityPlugins="http://URL-TO-PLUGIN/"
extraPlugins="my-custom-plugin"

In case you want to configure RabbitMQ logging set logs value to false and set the log config in extraConfiguration following the official documentation.

An example:

logs: false # custom logging
extraConfiguration: |
  log.default.level = warning
  log.file = false
  log.console = true
  log.console.level = warning
  log.console.formatter = json

RabbitMQ nodes assume their peers come back online within five minutes (by default). When the OrderedReady pod management policy is used with a readiness probe that implicitly requires a fully booted node, the deployment can deadlock:

• Kubernetes will expect the first node to pass a readiness probe
• The readiness probe may require a fully booted node
• The node will fully boot after it detects that its peers have come online
• Kubernetes will not start any more pods until the first one boots

The following combination of deployment settings avoids the problem:

• Use podManagementPolicy: "Parallel" to boot multiple cluster nodes in parallel
• Use rabbitmq-diagnostics ping for readiness probe

To learn more, please consult RabbitMQ documentation guides:

• RabbitMQ Clustering guide: Node Restarts
• RabbitMQ Clustering guide: Restarts and Readiness Probes
• Recommendations for Operator-less (DIY) deployments to Kubernetes

Note that forcing nodes to boot is not a solution and doing so can be dangerous. Forced booting is a last resort mechanism in RabbitMQ that helps make remaining cluster nodes recover and rejoin each other after a permanent loss of some of their former peers. In other words, forced booting a node is an emergency event recovery procedure.

• Changing the password through RabbitMQ's UI can make the pod fail due to the default liveness probes. If you do so, remember to make the chart aware of the new password. Updating the default secret with the password you set through RabbitMQ's UI will automatically recreate the pods. If you are using your own secret, you may have to manually recreate the pods.

The Bitnami RabbitMQ image stores the RabbitMQ data and configurations at the /opt/bitnami/rabbitmq/var/lib/rabbitmq/ path of the container.

The chart mounts a Persistent Volume at this location. By default, the volume is created using dynamic volume provisioning. An existing PersistentVolumeClaim can also be defined.

1. Create the PersistentVolume
2. Create the PersistentVolumeClaim
3. Install the chart

helm install my-release --set persistence.existingClaim=PVC_NAME oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/rabbitmq

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

As the image runs as non-root by default, it is necessary to adjust the ownership of the persistent volume so that the container can write data into it.

By default, the chart is configured to use Kubernetes Security Context to automatically change the ownership of the volume. However, this feature does not work in all Kubernetes distributions. As an alternative, this chart supports using an initContainer to change the ownership of the volume before mounting it in the final destination.

You can enable this initContainer by setting volumePermissions.enabled to true.

RabbitMQ has built-in support for Prometheus metrics exposed at GET /metrics. However, these metrics are all cluster-wide, and do not show any per-queue or per-node metrics.

To get per-object metrics, there is a second metrics endpoint at GET /metrics/detailed that accepts query parameters to choose which metric families you would like to see. For instance, you can pass family=node_coarse_metrics&family=queue_coarse_metrics to see per-node and per-queue metrics, but with no need to see Erlang, connection, or channel metrics.

Additionally, there is a third metrics endpoint: GET /metrics/per-object. which returns all per-object metrics. However, this can be computationally expensive on a large cluster with many objects, and so RabbitMQ docs suggest using GET /metrics/detailed mentioned above to filter your scraping and only fetch the per-object metrics that are needed for a given monitoring application.

Because they expose different sets of data, a valid use case is to scrape metrics from both GET /metrics and GET /metrics/detailed, ingesting both cluster-level and per-object metrics. The metrics.serviceMonitor.default and metrics.serviceMonitor.detailed values support configuring a ServiceMonitor that targets one or both of these metrics.

The above parameters map to the env variables defined in bitnami/rabbitmq. For more information please refer to the bitnami/rabbitmq image documentation.

Specify each parameter using the --set key=value[,key=value] argument to helm install. For example,

helm install my-release \
  --set auth.username=admin,auth.password=secretpassword,auth.erlangCookie=secretcookie \
    oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/rabbitmq

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

The above command sets the RabbitMQ admin username and password to admin and secretpassword respectively. Additionally the secure erlang cookie is set to secretcookie.

NOTE: Once this chart is deployed, it is not possible to change the application's access credentials, such as usernames or passwords, using Helm. To change these application credentials after deployment, delete any persistent volumes (PVs) used by the chart and re-deploy it, or use the application's built-in administrative tools if available.

Alternatively, a YAML file that specifies the values for the parameters can be provided while installing the chart. For example,

helm install my-release -f values.yaml oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/rabbitmq

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts. Tip: You can use the default values.yaml

Find more information about how to deal with common errors related to Bitnami's Helm charts in this troubleshooting guide.

It's necessary to set the auth.password and auth.erlangCookie parameters when upgrading for readiness/liveness probes to work properly. When you install this chart for the first time, some notes will be displayed providing the credentials you must use under the 'Credentials' section. Please note down the password and the cookie, and run the command below to upgrade your chart:

helm upgrade my-release oci://REGISTRY_NAME/REPOSITORY_NAME/rabbitmq --set auth.password=[PASSWORD] --set auth.erlangCookie=[RABBITMQ_ERLANG_COOKIE]

Note: You need to substitute the placeholders REGISTRY_NAME and REPOSITORY_NAME with a reference to your Helm chart registry and repository. For example, in the case of Bitnami, you need to use REGISTRY_NAME=registry-1.docker.io and REPOSITORY_NAME=bitnamicharts.

| Note: you need to substitute the placeholders [PASSWORD] and [RABBITMQ_ERLANG_COOKIE] with the values obtained in the installation notes.

This major updates RabbitMQ subchart to 4.0.1. For more information on this subchart's major, please refer to RabbitMQ upgrade notes.

This major version changes the default RabbitMQ image from 3.12.x to 3.13.x. Follow the official instructions to upgrade from 3.12 to 3.13.

This major bump changes the following security defaults:

• runAsGroup is changed from 0 to 1001
• readOnlyRootFilesystem is set to true
• resourcesPreset is changed from none to the minimum size working in our test suites (NOTE: resourcesPreset is not meant for production usage, but resources adapted to your use case).
• global.compatibility.openshift.adaptSecurityContext is changed from disabled to auto.

This could potentially break any customization or init scripts used in your deployment. If this is the case, change the default values to the previous ones.

This version adds NetworkPolicy objects by default. Its default configuration is setting open egress (this can be changed by setting networkPolicy.allowExternalEgress=false) and limited ingress to the default container ports. If you have any extra port exposed you may need to set the networkPolicy.extraIngress value. In the example below an extra port is exposed using extraContainerPorts and access is allowed using networkPolicy.extraIngress:

  extraContainerPorts:
    - name: "mqtts"
      protocol: "TCP"
      containerPort: 8883
  networkPolicy:
    extraIngress:
      - ports:
          - protocol: "TCP"
            containerPort: 8883
            port: 8883

You can revert this behavior by setting networkPolicy.enabled=false.

This major version changes the default RabbitMQ image from 3.10.x to 3.11.x. Follow the official instructions to upgrade from 3.10 to 3.11.

This major version changes the default RabbitMQ image from 3.9.x to 3.10.x. Follow the official instructions to upgrade from 3.9 to 3.10.

This major release renames several values in this chart and adds missing features, in order to be aligned with the rest of the assets in the Bitnami charts repository.

.dist .manager .metrics .epmd

• service.port has been renamed as service.ports.amqp.
• service.portName has been renamed as service.portNames.amqp.
• service.nodePorthas been renamed as service.nodePorts.amqp.
• service.tlsPort has been renamed as service.ports.amqpTls.
• service.tlsPortName has been renamed as service.portNames.amqpTls.
• service.tlsNodePort has been renamed as service.nodePorts.amqpTls.
• service.epmdPortName has been renamed as service.portNames.epmd.
• service.epmdNodePort has been renamed as service.nodePorts.epmd.
• service.distPort has been renamed as service.ports.dist.
• service.distPortName has been renamed as service.portNames.dist.
• service.distNodePort has been renamed as service.nodePorts.dist.
• service.managerPort has been renamed as service.ports.manager.
• service.managerPortName has been renamed as service.portNames.manager.
• service.managerNodePort has been renamed as service.nodePorts.manager.
• service.metricsPort has been renamed as service.ports.metrics.
• service.metricsPortName has been renamed as service.portNames.metrics.
• service.metricsNodePort has been renamed as service.nodePorts.metrics.
• persistence.volumes has been removed, as it duplicates the parameter extraVolumes.
• ingress.certManager has been removed.
• metrics.serviceMonitor.relabellings has been replaced with metrics.serviceMonitor.relabelings, and it sets the field relabelings instead of metricRelabelings.
• metrics.serviceMonitor.additionalLabels has been renamed as metrics.serviceMonitor.labels
• updateStrategyType has been removed, use the field updateStrategy instead, which is interpreted as a template.
• The content of podSecurityContext and containerSecurityContext have been modified.
• The behavior of VolumePermissions has been modified to not change ownership of '.snapshot' and 'lost+found'
• Introduced the values ContainerPorts.*, separating the service and container ports configuration.

This new version of the chart bumps the RabbitMQ version to 3.9.1. It is considered a minor release, and no breaking changes are expected. Additionally, RabbitMQ 3.9.X nodes can run alongside 3.8.X nodes.

See the Upgrading guide and the RabbitMQ change log for further documentation.

On November 13, 2020, Helm v2 support was formally finished, this major version is the result of the required changes applied to the Helm Chart to be able to incorporate the different features added in Helm v3 and to be consistent with the Helm project itself regarding the Helm v2 EOL.

• Several parameters were renamed or disappeared in favor of new ones on this major version:
  • replicas is renamed to replicaCount.
  • securityContext.* is deprecated in favor of podSecurityContext and containerSecurityContext.
  • Authentication parameters were reorganized under the auth.* parameter:
    • rabbitmq.username, rabbitmq.password, and rabbitmq.erlangCookie are now auth.username, auth.password, and auth.erlangCookie respectively.
    • rabbitmq.tls.* parameters are now under auth.tls.*.
  • Parameters prefixed with rabbitmq. were renamed removing the prefix. E.g. rabbitmq.configuration -> renamed to configuration.
  • rabbitmq.rabbitmqClusterNodeName is deprecated.
  • rabbitmq.setUlimitNofiles is deprecated.
  • forceBoot.enabled is renamed to clustering.forceBoot.
  • loadDefinition.secretName is renamed to loadDefinition.existingSecret.
  • metics.port is remamed to service.metricsPort.
  • service.extraContainerPorts is renamed to extraContainerPorts.
  • service.nodeTlsPort is renamed to service.tlsNodePort.
  • podDisruptionBudget is deprecated in favor of pdb.create, pdb.minAvailable, and pdb.maxUnavailable.
  • rbacEnabled -> deprecated in favor of rbac.create.
  • New parameters: serviceAccount.create, and serviceAccount.name.
  • New parameters: memoryHighWatermark.enabled, memoryHighWatermark.type, and memoryHighWatermark.value.
• Chart labels and Ingress configuration were adapted to follow the Helm charts best practices.
• Initialization logic now relies on the container.
• This version introduces bitnami/common, a library chart as a dependency. More documentation about this new utility could be found here. Please, make sure that you have updated the chart dependencies before executing any upgrade.
• The layout of the persistent volumes has changed (if using persistence). Action is required if preserving data through the upgrade is desired:
  • The data has moved from mnesia/ within the persistent volume to the root of the persistent volume
  • The config/ and schema/ directories within the persistent volume are no longer used
  • An init container can be used to move and clean up the peristent volumes. An example can be found here.
  • Alternately the value persistence.subPath can be overridden to be mnesia so that the directory layout is consistent with what it was previously.
    • Note however that this will leave the unused config/ and schema/ directories within the peristent volume forever.

Consequences:

• Backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.
• Compatibility with non Bitnami images is not guaranteed anymore.

This new version updates the RabbitMQ image to a new version based on bash instead of node.js. However, since this Chart overwrites the container's command, the changes to the container shouldn't affect the Chart. To upgrade, it may be needed to enable the fastBoot option, as it is already the case from upgrading from 5.X to 5.Y.

This major release changes the clustering method from ip to hostname. This change is needed to fix the persistence. The data dir will now depend on the hostname which is stable instead of the pod IP that might change.

IMPORTANT: Note that if you upgrade from a previous version you will lose your data.

Backwards compatibility is not guaranteed unless you modify the labels used on the chart's deployments. Use the workaround below to upgrade from versions previous to 3.0.0. The following example assumes that the release name is rabbitmq:

kubectl delete statefulset rabbitmq --cascade=false

Bitnami Kubernetes documentation is available at https://docs.bitnami.com/. You can find there the following resources:

• Documentation for RabbitMQ Helm chart
• Get Started with Kubernetes guides
• Kubernetes FAQs
• Kubernetes Developer guides

Copyright © 2024 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.