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rabbitmqadmin v2, a Command Line Tool for the HTTP API

rabbitmqadmin v2 is a command line tool that uses the HTTP API.

It supports many of the operations available in the management UI:

  • Listing objects (virtual hosts, users, queues, streams, permissions, policies, and so on)
  • Creating objects
  • Deleting objects
  • Access to cluster and node metrics
  • Run health checks
  • Listing feature flag state
  • Listing deprecated features in use across the cluster
  • Definition export and import
  • Closing connections
  • Rebalancing of queue leaders across cluster nodes

Note that rabbitmqadmin is not a replacement for rabbitmqctl or rabbitmq-plugins as the HTTP API intentionally doesn't expose certain operations.

rabbitmqadmin v2​

This generation of rabbitmqadmin is a standalone project that has its own development cycle that's independent from that of RabbitMQ.

It is distributed as a native binary.

Downloads​

Binaries for x86-64 Linux, aarch64 Linux, aarch64 macOS and x86-64 Windows are distributed via GitHub releases.

Usage​

Exploring Available Command Groups and Sub-commands​

To explore what command groups are available, use

rabbitmqadmin help

which will output a list of command groups:

Usage: rabbitmqadmin [OPTIONS] <command>

Commands:
  show                 overview
  list                 lists objects by type
  declare              creates or declares things
  delete               deletes objects
  purge                purges queues
  health_check         runs health checks
  close                closes connections
  rebalance            rebalances queue leaders
  definitions          operations on definitions
  export               see 'definitions export'
  import               see 'definitions import'
  feature_flags        operations on feature flags
  deprecated_features  operations on deprecated features
  publish              publishes (inefficiently) message(s) to a queue or a stream. Only suitable for development and test environments.
  get                  fetches message(s) from a queue or stream via polling. Only suitable for development and test environments.
  tanzu                Tanzu RabbitMQ-specific commands
  help                 Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

To explore commands in a specific group, use

rabbitmqadmin {group name} help

Exploring the CLI with help, --help​

To learn about what command groups and specific commands are available, run

rabbitmqadmin help

This flag can be appended to a command or subcommand to get command-specific documentation:

rabbitmqadmin declare queue --help
# => creates or declares things
# =>
# => Usage: rabbitmqadmin declare [object]
# => ...

Alternatively, the help subcommand can be given a command name. It's the equivalent of tagging on --help at the end of command name:

rabbitmqadmin declare help queue
# => creates or declares things
# =>
# => Usage: rabbitmqadmin declare [object]
# => ...

More specific examples are covered in the Examples section below.

Interactive vs. Use in Scripts​

Like the original version, rabbitmqadmin v2 is first and foremost built for interactive use by humans. Many commands will output formatted tables, for example:

rabbitmqadmin show overview

will output a table that looks like this:

┌──────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Overview                                                                                                             │
├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ key              │ value                                                                                             │
├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Product name     │ RabbitMQ                                                                                          │
├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Product version  │ 4.0.7                                                                                             │
├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ RabbitMQ version │ 4.0.7                                                                                             │
├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Erlang version   │ 26.2.5.8                                                                                          │
├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Erlang details   │ Erlang/OTP 26 [erts-14.2.5.7] [source] [64-bit] [smp:10:10] [ds:10:10:10] [async-threads:1] [jit] │
└──────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

As it is easy to observe, parsing such output in a script will be challenging.

For this reason, rabbitmqadmin v2 can render results in a way that would be much more friendly for scripting if the --non-interactive flag is passed. It is a global flag so it must be passed before the command and subcommand name:

rabbitmqadmin --non-interactive show overview

The output of the above command will not include any table borders and will is much easier to parse as a result:

 key
 Product name      RabbitMQ
 Product version   4.0.7
 RabbitMQ version  4.0.7
 Erlang version    26.2.5.8
 Erlang details    Erlang/OTP 26 [erts-14.2.5.7] [source] [64-bit] [smp:10:10] [ds:10:10:10] [async-threads:1] [jit]

Retrieving Basic Node Information​

rabbitmqadmin show overview

will display essential node information in tabular form.

Retrieving Connection, Queue/Stream, Channel Churn Information​

Helps assess connection, queue/stream, channel churn metrics in the cluster.

rabbitmqadmin show churn

Listing cluster nodes​

rabbitmqadmin list nodes

Listing virtual hosts​

rabbitmqadmin list vhosts

Listing users​

rabbitmqadmin list users

Listing queues​

rabbitmqadmin list queues
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "monitoring" list queues

Listing exchanges​

rabbitmqadmin list exchanges
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" list exchanges

Listing bindings​

rabbitmqadmin list bindings
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" list bindings

Create a Virtual Host​

rabbitmqadmin declare vhost --name "vh-789" --default-queue-type "quorum" --description "Used to reproduce issue #789"

Delete a Virtual Host​

rabbitmqadmin delete vhost --name "vh-789"
# --idempotently means that 404 Not Found responses will not be  considered errors
rabbitmqadmin delete vhost --name "vh-789" --idempotently

Declare a Queue​

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" declare queue --name "target.quorum.queue.name" --type "quorum" --durable true
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" declare queue --name "target.stream.name" --type "stream" --durable true
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" declare queue --name "target.classic.queue.name" --type "classic" --durable true --auto-delete false

Purge a queue​

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" purge queue --name "target.queue.name"

Delete a queue​

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" delete queue --name "target.queue.name"
# --idempotently means that 404 Not Found responses will not be considered errors
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" delete queue --name "target.queue.name" --idempotently

Declare an Exchange​

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" declare exchange --name "events.all_types.topic" --type "topic" --durable true
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" declare exchange --name "events.all_type.uncategorized" --type "fanout" --durable true --auto-delete false
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" declare exchange --name "local.random.c60bda92" --type "x-local-random" --durable true

Delete an exchange​

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" delete exchange --name "target.exchange.name"
# --idempotently means that 404 Not Found responses will not be  considered errors
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" delete exchange --name "target.exchange.name" --idempotently

Inspecting Node Memory Breakdown​

There are two commands for reasoning about target node's memory footprint:

# displays a breakdown in bytes
rabbitmqadmin show memory_breakdown_in_bytes --node 'rabbit@hostname'
# displays a breakdown in percent
rabbitmqadmin show memory_breakdown_in_percent --node 'rabbit@hostname'

Example output of show memory_breakdown_in_percent:

┌────────────────────────────────────────┬────────────┐
│ key                                    │ percentage │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ total                                  │ 100%       │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Binary heap                            │ 45.10%     │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Allocated but unused                   │ 23.45%     │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Quorum queue ETS tables                │ 23.05%     │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Other processes                        │ 5.32%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Other (used by the runtime)            │ 4.98%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Code                                   │ 4.54%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Client connections: others processes   │ 3.64%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Management stats database              │ 3.48%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Client connections: reader processes   │ 3.22%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Plugins and their data                 │ 3.12%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Other (ETS tables)                     │ 1.55%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Metrics data                           │ 0.66%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ AMQP 0-9-1 channels                    │ 0.40%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Message store indices                  │ 0.27%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Atom table                             │ 0.24%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Client connections: writer processes   │ 0.19%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Quorum queue replica processes         │ 0.10%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Stream replica processes               │ 0.07%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Mnesia                                 │ 0.02%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Metadata store                         │ 0.02%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Stream coordinator processes           │ 0.02%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Classic queue processes                │ 0.00%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Metadata store ETS tables              │ 0.00%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Stream replica reader processes        │ 0.00%      │
├────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┤
│ Reserved by the kernel but unallocated │ 0.00%      │
└────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┘

Note that there are two different supported strategies for computing memory footprint of a node. rabbitmqadmin will use the greater value for 100% when computing the relative share in percent for each category.

Other factors that can affect the precision of percentage values reported are runtime allocator behavior nuances and the kernel page cache.

List feature flags and their state​

rabbitmqadmin feature_flags list
# same command as above
rabbitmqadmin list feature_flags

Enable a feature flag​

rabbitmqadmin feature_flags enable rabbitmq_4.0.0

Enable all stable feature flags​

rabbitmqadmin feature_flags enable_all

List deprecated features in use in the cluster​

rabbitmqadmin deprecated_features list_used

List all deprecated features​

rabbitmqadmin deprecated_features list
# same command as above
rabbitmqadmin list deprecated_features

Configuration Files​

rabbitmqadmin v2 supports TOML-based configuration files stores groups of HTTP API connection settings under aliases ("node names" in original rabbitmqadmin speak).

Here is an example rabbitmqadmin v2 configuration file:

[local]
hostname = "localhost"
port = 15672
username = "lolz"
password = "lolz"
vhost = '/'

[staging]
hostname = "192.168.20.31"
port = 15672
username = "staging-2387a72329"
password = "staging-1d20cfbd9d"

[production]
hostname = "(redacted)"
port = 15671
username = "user-2ca6bae15ff6b79e92"
password = "user-92ee4c479ae604cc72"

Instead of specifying --hostname or --username on the command line to connect to a cluster (or specific node) called staging, a --node alias can be specified instead:

# will use the settings from the section called [staging]
rabbitmqadmin --node staging show churn

Default configuration file path is at $HOME/.rabbitmqadmin.conf, as it was in the original version of rabbitmqadmin. It can be overridden on the command line:

# will use the settings from the section called [staging]
rabbitmqadmin --config $HOME/.configuration/rabbitmqadmin.conf --node staging show churn

Breaking or Potentially Breaking Changes Compared to v1​

Some Non-Essential Features Were Dropped​

rabbitmqadmin v2 does not support

  • Sorting of results. Instead, use --non-interactive and parse the spaces-separated output. Many modern tools for working with data parse it into a table, sort the data set, filter the results, and son. In fact, these features for data processing are ready available in some shells
  • Column selection. This feature may be reintroduced
  • JSON output for arbitrary commands (with the exception of definitions commands). Use the HTTP API directly if you need to work with JSON
  • CSV output for arbitrary commands. This format may be reintroduced

--snake-case for Command Options​

rabbitmqadmin v1 used lower_case for named command arguments, for example:

# Note: auto_delete
rabbitmqadmin-v1 --vhost "vh-2" declare queue name="qq.1" type="quorum" durable=true auto_delete=false

rabbitmqadmin v2 uses a more typical --snake-case format for the same arguments:

# Note: --auto-delete
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "vh-2" declare queue --name "qq.1" --type "quorum" --durable true --auto-delete false

Global Arguments Come First​

Global flags in rabbitmqadmin v2 must precede the command category (e.g. list) and the command itself, namely various HTTP API endpoint options and --vhost:

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "events" declare queue --name "target.quorum.queue.name" --type "quorum" --durable true

--prefix Overrides API Path Prefix​

In rabbitmqadmin v1, --path-prefix appended to the default API path prefix. In this version, the value passed to --path-prefix will be used as given, in other words, it replaces the default prefix, /api.

Configuration File Format Moved to TOML​

rabbitmqadmin v1 supported ini configuration files that allowed the user to group a number of command line values under a name, e.g. a cluster or node nickname.

Due to the "no dependencies other than Python" design goal of rabbitmqadmin v1, this feature was not really tested, and the specific syntax (that of ini files, supported by Python's ConfigParser) linting, parsing or generation tools were not really available.

rabbitmqadmin v2 replaces this format with TOML, a popular configuration standard with verification and linting tools, as well as very mature parser that is not at all specific to rabbitmqadmin v2.

Here is an example rabbitmqadmin v2 configuration file:

[local]
hostname = "localhost"
port = 15672
username = "lolz"
password = "lolz"
vhost = '/'

[staging]
hostname = "192.168.20.31"
port = 15672
username = "staging-2387a72329"
password = "staging-1d20cfbd9d"

[production]
hostname = "(redacted)"
port = 15671
username = "user-efe1f4d763f6"
password = "(redacted)"

rabbitmqadmin v1​

rabbitmqadmin v1 is the original CLI tool for the HTTP API, historically developed as part of the management plugin and distributed with it.

It is no longer under active development.

Obtaining rabbitmqadmin v1​

important

Consider switching to rabbitmqadmin v2. The original rabbitmqadmin is no longer under active development.

rabbitmqadmin v1 can be downloaded from any RabbitMQ node that has the management plugin enabled. Navigate to http://{hostname}:15672/cli/rabbitmqadmin to download it. The tool requires a supported version of Python to be installed.

Alternatively, rabbitmqadmin v1 can be downloaded from GitHub.