RabbitMQ container with Docker Compose

docker-compose.yml

Example container configuration:

services:
    rabbitmq:
        image: rabbitmq:3-management-alpine
        container_name: rabbitmq
        volumes:
            - ./.docker/rabbitmq/etc/:/etc/rabbitmq/
            - ./.docker/rabbitmq/data/:/var/lib/rabbitmq/
            - ./.docker/rabbitmq/logs/:/var/log/rabbitmq/
        environment:
            RABBITMQ_ERLANG_COOKIE: ${RABBITMQ_ERLANG_COOKIE}
            RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER: ${RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER}
            RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS: ${RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS}
        ports:
            - 5672:5672
            - 15672:15672

What does it all mean?

        image: rabbitmq:3-management-alpine

Specifies an image to use, in this case the rabbitmq:3-management-alpine, which is based on the popular Alpine Linux project, and comes with the management plugin installed and enabled by default, which is available on the standard management port of 15672, with the default username and password of guest / guest.

If you'd rather avoid Alpine, you could use rabbitmq:3-management image, which would increase the image size by around 100 MB.

        container_name: rabbitmq

Specifies a custom container name, rather than a generated default name.

        volumes:

Mounts host paths or named volumes, specified as sub-options to a service.

In case of the above configuration:

            - ./.docker/rabbitmq/etc/:/etc/rabbitmq/

will mount local .docker/rabbitmq/etc/ directory as /etc/rabbitmq/ in the container, allowing easy modification to the configuration files.

            - ./.docker/rabbitmq/data/:/var/lib/rabbitmq/

will mount local .docker/rabbitmq/data/ directory as /var/lib/rabbitmq/ in the container, allowing easy local access to RabbitMQ data.

            - ./.docker/rabbitmq/logs/:/var/log/rabbitmq/

will mount local .docker/rabbitmq/logs/ directory as /var/log/rabbitmq/ in the container, allowing easy local access to RabbitMQ logs.

If you want to provide your own configuration file instead of using one automatically generated by docker-entrypoint.sh you might mount your config file as /etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq.conf (sysctl format, for RabbitMQ versions 3.7.0 and up) or /etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq.config (Erlang term configuration format, for versions prior to 3.7.0).

        environment:
            RABBITMQ_ERLANG_COOKIE: ${RABBITMQ_ERLANG_COOKIE}
            RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER: ${RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER}
            RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS: ${RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS}

Add environment variables, either as an array or a dictionary.

        ports:
            - 5672:5672
            - 15672:15672

Port mapping defined in short syntax: HOST:CONTAINER.

5672:5672 means that port 5672 on host will forward all its traffic to RabbitMQ's main port 5672 in the container. Same with management plugin's port 15672:15672.

Note that while you are free to modify host ports to your liking, you should not change container ports unless you change them in the rabbitmq.conf configuration file too.

.docker/rabbitmq/rabbitmq.conf

Default rabbitmq.conf configuration file could either be automatically generated by the docker-entrypoint.sh script on container initialization, or we could provide our own, for example:

loopback_users.guest = false
listeners.tcp.default = 5672
default_pass = guest
default_user = guest
hipe_compile = false
management.listener.port = 15672
management.listener.ssl = false

.docker/rabbitmq/enabled_plugins

The rabbitmq:3-management image (and its -alpine version too) ships with only one plugin installed by default - management plugin. Once it is enabled, the plugin configuration file /etc/rabbitmq/enabled_plugins looks as follows:

[rabbitmq_management].

RabbitMQ ships with several Tier 1 (Core) plugins included in the distribution.

Other community-developed plugins need to be downloaded and installed first before enabling them for RabbitMQ.