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Initialize RabbitMQ with Script

KubeDB supports RabbitMQ initialization using definitions files. This tutorial will show you how to use KubeDB to initialize a RabbitMQ broker from a definitions script stored in a ConfigMap.

RabbitMQ supports importing a definitions file (JSON format) at startup to pre-configure virtual hosts, exchanges, queues, bindings, users, and policies.

Before You Begin

At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.

Now, install KubeDB cli on your workstation and KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here.

To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.

$ kubectl create ns demo
namespace/demo created

$ kubectl get ns demo
NAME    STATUS  AGE
demo    Active  5s

Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/rabbitmq folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.

Prepare Initialization Scripts

RabbitMQ supports initialization with a JSON definitions file. In this tutorial, we will use a definitions.json file to pre-create a virtual host app-vhost, an exchange app-exchange, a queue app-queue, and a binding between them.

We will use a ConfigMap as the script source. You can use any Kubernetes supported volume as a script source.

Let’s create a ConfigMap with the initialization definitions file:

$ kubectl create configmap -n demo rmq-init-script \
--from-literal=definitions.json="$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubedb/rabbitmq-init-scripts/master/definitions.json)"
configmap/rmq-init-script created

Create RabbitMQ with Script Source

Following YAML describes the RabbitMQ object with init.script:

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: RabbitMQ
metadata:
  name: script-rabbitmq
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: "3.13.2"
  replicas: 1
  storage:
    storageClassName: "standard"
    accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 1Gi
  init:
    script:
      configMap:
        name: rmq-init-script
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut

Here,

• init.script specifies the definitions file used to initialize the broker when it is being created. RabbitMQ loads the definitions from the ConfigMap volume at startup.

VolumeSource provided in init.script will be mounted in the Pod. RabbitMQ will automatically load the definitions.json file from the mounted path.

Now, let’s create the RabbitMQ CRD using the YAML shown above:

$ kubectl create -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2026.6.19/docs/examples/rabbitmq/initialization/script-rabbitmq.yaml
rabbitmq.kubedb.com/script-rabbitmq created

Now, wait until RabbitMQ goes in Ready state. Verify that the broker is in Ready state using the following command:

$ kubectl get rabbitmq -n demo script-rabbitmq
NAME              VERSION   STATUS   AGE
script-rabbitmq   3.13.2    Ready    2m

Verify Initialization

Now let’s connect to our RabbitMQ instance to verify that the broker has been initialized successfully.

Connection Information:

• Host name/address: you can use any of these

  • Service: script-rabbitmq.demo
  • Pod IP: ($ kubectl get pods script-rabbitmq-0 -n demo -o yaml | grep podIP)

• Port: 5672 (AMQP) or 15672 (Management UI)

• Username: Run the following command to get the username:

  $ kubectl get secret -n demo script-rabbitmq-auth -o jsonpath='{.data.username}' | base64 -d
  admin
  

• Password: Run the following command to get the password:

  $ kubectl get secret -n demo script-rabbitmq-auth -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 -d
  S3cur3P@ssw0rd
  

You can verify the initialization using the RabbitMQ management CLI inside the Pod:

$ kubectl exec -it -n demo script-rabbitmq-0 -- rabbitmqctl list_vhosts
Listing vhosts ...
name
/
app-vhost

$ kubectl exec -it -n demo script-rabbitmq-0 -- rabbitmqctl list_exchanges --vhost app-vhost name type
Listing exchanges for vhost app-vhost ...
name    type
        direct
amq.direct      direct
amq.fanout      fanout
amq.headers     headers
amq.match       headers
amq.rabbitmq.trace      topic
amq.topic       topic
app-exchange    direct

$ kubectl exec -it -n demo script-rabbitmq-0 -- rabbitmqctl list_queues --vhost app-vhost name
Listing queues for vhost app-vhost ...
name
app-queue

We can see that app-vhost, app-exchange, and app-queue were created through the initialization definitions file.

Cleaning up

To cleanup the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:

$ kubectl delete -n demo rabbitmq/script-rabbitmq
$ kubectl delete -n demo configmap/rmq-init-script
$ kubectl delete ns demo

Next Steps

• Learn about backup and restore RabbitMQ using Stash.
• Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.