RabbitMQ

Key Features

• Multiple messaging protocol support including AMQP 0-9-1, MQTT, and STOMP for diverse client compatibility
• Flexible message routing with exchanges, queues, and binding patterns supporting direct, topic, fanout, and headers routing
• Management UI with real-time monitoring, queue inspection, message tracing, and administrative controls
• Message persistence and durability guarantees with configurable storage options and acknowledgment patterns
• Dead letter queues for handling failed message processing and message TTL management
• Priority queues enabling message ordering based on application-defined importance levels
• Plugin ecosystem including federation, shovel, delayed message exchange, and clustering extensions
• Built-in clustering and high availability features with automatic failover and data replication

Common Use Cases

• 1Microservices communication requiring reliable message delivery between distributed application components
• 2Background job processing systems with work queues for handling asynchronous tasks like image processing or email sending
• 3Event-driven architectures where services need to react to business events with guaranteed delivery
• 4IoT message routing and processing for device telemetry, commands, and sensor data aggregation
• 5Enterprise application integration connecting legacy systems with modern cloud-native applications
• 6E-commerce order processing pipelines requiring coordination between inventory, payment, and fulfillment services
• 7Real-time notification systems for chat applications, push notifications, and user activity feeds

Prerequisites

• Minimum 256MB RAM available, with 1GB+ recommended for production workloads with high message throughput
• Ports 5672 (AMQP) and 15672 (Management UI) available and not conflicting with existing services
• Environment variables RABBITMQ_USER and RABBITMQ_PASSWORD configured in .env file for authentication
• Understanding of message queue concepts including exchanges, queues, bindings, and routing keys
• Basic familiarity with AMQP protocol concepts or willingness to learn message broker fundamentals
• Docker host with sufficient disk space for message persistence and log storage

docker-compose.yml

1services: 
2  rabbitmq: 
3    image: rabbitmq:3-management-alpine
4    container_name: rabbitmq
5    restart: unless-stopped
6    environment: 
7      RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER: ${RABBITMQ_USER}
8      RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS: ${RABBITMQ_PASSWORD}
9    volumes: 
10      - rabbitmq_data:/var/lib/rabbitmq
11    ports: 
12      - "5672:5672"
13      - "15672:15672"
14
15volumes: 
16  rabbitmq_data: 

.env Template

1RABBITMQ_USER=admin
2RABBITMQ_PASSWORD=changeme

Usage Notes

Quick Start

1# 1. Create the compose file
2cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
3services:
4  rabbitmq:
5    image: rabbitmq:3-management-alpine
6    container_name: rabbitmq
7    restart: unless-stopped
8    environment:
9      RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER: ${RABBITMQ_USER}
10      RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS: ${RABBITMQ_PASSWORD}
11    volumes:
12      - rabbitmq_data:/var/lib/rabbitmq
13    ports:
14      - "5672:5672"
15      - "15672:15672"
16
17volumes:
18  rabbitmq_data:
19EOF
20
21# 2. Create the .env file
22cat > .env << 'EOF'
23RABBITMQ_USER=admin
24RABBITMQ_PASSWORD=changeme
25EOF
26
27# 3. Start the services
28docker compose up -d
29
30# 4. View logs
31docker compose logs -f

One-Liner

Run this command to download and set up the recipe in one step:

1curl -fsSL https://docker.recipes/api/recipes/rabbitmq/run | bash

Troubleshooting