Installation of RabbitMQ Server on Ubuntu

Step By Step Guide

RabbitMQ is the most widely deployed open source message broker tool.

RabbitMQ was written in Erlang and originally implemented the AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) and it is extended with a plug-in architecture to provide support for MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT), Streaming Text Oriented Messaging Protocol (STOMP), and other protocols.

RabbitMQ is highly scalable and ensures data availability all the time with fault-tolerant architecture.

RabbitMQ runs on many operating systems and cloud environments, and provides a wide range of developer tools for most popular languages.

So in this article, We will see step by step installation and configuration of RabbitMQ Server On Ubuntu Operating System.

Step I : Install Essential Dependencies

First thing we have to do update & upgrade the system. Then we will install the require dependencies like curl & gnupg.

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install curl gnupg -y

Step II : Enable apt HTTPS Transport

In order to download RabbitMQ & Erlang packages from launchpad, the apt-transport-https package must be installed. This package allow apt to use package repository over HTTPS

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https -y

Step III : Add Repository Signing Keys

To use RabbitMQ Repository, We have to configure it’s GPG key on our system for validation.

## Team RabbitMQ's main signing key
curl -1sLf "https://keys.openpgp.org/vks/v1/by-fingerprint/0A9AF2115F4687BD29803A206B73A36E6026DFCA" | sudo gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/com.rabbitmq.team.gpg > /dev/null
## Launchpad PPA that provides modern Erlang releases
curl -1sLf "https://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xf77f1eda57ebb1cc" | sudo gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/net.launchpad.ppa.rabbitmq.erlang.gpg > /dev/null
## PackageCloud RabbitMQ repository
curl -1sLf "https://packagecloud.io/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/gpgkey" | sudo gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/io.packagecloud.rabbitmq.gpg > /dev/null

Step IV : Add a Source List File

As it is 3rd party apt repository, So we have configure it on our system. So below steps we have to follow,

1. Open the following file with your preferred Text Editor
   vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rabbitmq.list
2. Copy below content to that file.

# Source repository definition example.

## Provides modern Erlang/OTP releases
##
## "distribution-name" as distribution name should work for any reasonably recent Ubuntu or Debian release.
## See the release to distribution mapping table in RabbitMQ doc guides to learn more.
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/net.launchpad.ppa.rabbitmq.erlang.gpg] http://ppa.launchpad.net/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-erlang/ubuntu distribution-name main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/net.launchpad.ppa.rabbitmq.erlang.gpg] http://ppa.launchpad.net/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-erlang/ubuntu distribution-name main

## Provides RabbitMQ
##
## "distribution-name" as distribution name should work for any reasonably recent Ubuntu or Debian release.
## See the release to distribution mapping table in RabbitMQ doc guides to learn more.
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/io.packagecloud.rabbitmq.gpg] https://packagecloud.io/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/ubuntu/ distribution-name main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/io.packagecloud.rabbitmq.gpg] https://packagecloud.io/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/ubuntu/ distribution-name main

Note : Replace the distribution-name with you current distribution code name,

Here is Ubuntu distribution name with code name list,
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS -> jammy
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS -> focal
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS -> bionic
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS -> xenial

Here is the one sample for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS,

## Provides modern Erlang/OTP releases
##
## "jammy" as distribution name should work for any reasonably recent Ubuntu or Debian release.
## See the release to distribution mapping table in RabbitMQ doc guides to learn more.
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/net.launchpad.ppa.rabbitmq.erlang.gpg] http://ppa.launchpad.net/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-erlang/ubuntu jammy main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/net.launchpad.ppa.rabbitmq.erlang.gpg] http://ppa.launchpad.net/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-erlang/ubuntu jammy main
## Provides RabbitMQ
##
## "jammy" as distribution name should work for any reasonably recent Ubuntu or Debian release.
## See the release to distribution mapping table in RabbitMQ doc guides to learn more.
deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/io.packagecloud.rabbitmq.gpg] https://packagecloud.io/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/ubuntu/ jammy main
deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/io.packagecloud.rabbitmq.gpg] https://packagecloud.io/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/ubuntu/ jammy main

Step V : Updating the Index listing

After adding any repository, We have to update the apt packages indexing.

sudo apt-get update -y

Step VI : Install Erlang packages

Now it time to install the Erlang packages with following command,

## Install Erlang packages
sudo apt-get install -y erlang-base erlang-asn1 erlang-crypto erlang-eldap erlang-ftp erlang-inets erlang-mnesia erlang-os-mon erlang-parsetools erlang-public-key erlang-runtime-tools erlang-snmp erlang-ssl erlang-syntax-tools erlang-tftp erlang-tools erlang-xmerl

Step VII : Install RabbitMQ Server and It’s Dependencies

After the Erlang packages installation, We have to install RabbitMQ Server package with it’s dependencies,

## Install rabbitmq-server and its dependencies
sudo apt-get install rabbitmq-server -y --fix-missing

Step VIII : Managing the RabbitMQ Service

We will use following commands to manage RabbitMQ service,

## For SystemD
# To see the current status of RabbitMQ Service
sudo systemctl status rabbitmq-server
# To start the RabbitMQ Service
sudo systemctl start rabbitmq-server
# To stop the RabbitMQ Service
sudo systemctl stop rabbitmq-server
# To enable the RabbitMQ Service
sudo systemctl enable rabbitmq-server
# To disable the RabbitMQ Service
sudo systemctl disable rabbitmq-server
## For InitD
# To see the current status of RabbitMQ Service
sudo service rabbitmq-server status
# To start the RabbitMQ Service
sudo service rabbitmq-server start
# To stop the RabbitMQ Service
sudo service rabbitmq-server stop

Step IX : Installation RabbitMQ Server Web Dashboard

To access RabbitMQ server from browser, we have to install RabbitMQ Management plugin,

rabbitmq-plugins enable rabbitmq_management

To access RabbitMQ Dashboard,
# From Same System : http://localhost:15672
# From Same Network : http://ip-address:15672 like http://192.168.0.151:15672

Step X : Verify RabbitMQ Status

To check RabbitMQ server information & status, we can use following command,

rabbitmqctl status

Step XI : Default User Access

Default it creates a user guest with password guest. Unconfigured clients will in general use these credentials. By default, these credentials can only be used when connecting to the RabbitMQ as localhost so you will need to take action before connecting from any other machine.

Step XII : Create New User & Assign Permissions

Now we have to create new user and assign administrator permissions,

# Check current Users
rabbitmqctl list_users
# Create new user with password 
echo 'hello@123' | rabbitmqctl add_user 'admin'
# Assign the 'administrator' permissions
rabbitmqctl set_permissions -p "/" "admin" ".*" ".*" ".*"
# Set the user tag 
rabbitmqctl set_user_tags admin administrator
# Check current user again
rabbitmqctl list_users

Now with new user you can able access the RabbitMQ Dashboard.

Reference

[1] RabbitMQ Official Website