Service Bus I: RabbitMQ

About

RabbitMQ is a message-queueing software also known as a message broker or queue manager. Simply said; it is software where queues are defined, to which applications connect in order to transfer messages. RabbitMQ is particularly interesting for a on premise deployment of a message queueing software, as it allows you to enjoy all the benefits of a fully-fledged message-queueing software, without the involvement of third-party services in the cloud.

Download

Open Matrix42 Marketplace
Login with your Matrix42 Account
Navigate to Secure Unified Endpoint Management
Select Secure Unified Endpoint Management (UUX for SUEM)
Locate the Current Release Section and select Download UUX for SUEM
Download the latest Matrix42 Service Bus Rabbit MQ package
Extract your RabbitMQ Installation Package

RabbitMQ Installation Package content

The current RabbitMQ getting started package contains:

Erlang OTP 24.0
- TTP is a set of Erlang libraries and design principles providing middle ware to develop these systems. It includes its own distributed database, applications to interface towards other languages, debugging and release handling tools. It is a pre-requisite for the RabbitMQ server
RabbitMQ Server 3.9.5 for 64bit Windows system
Matrix42 CreateRabbitMqExchangeAndQueues.ps1 PowerShell script

Prerequisites

RabbitMQ Firewall Settings

Please open the following Ports used by RabbitMQ:

Port	Purpose
5672, 5671	Used by the protocol AMQP 0-9-1 and 1.0 clients with and without TLS
15672	HTTP API clients, management UI and rabbitmqadmin (only if the management plugin is enabled)

Installation

Please choose:

Automated Installation and configuration
Manual Installation and configuration

Automated Installation and configuration

The installation comes as self-extracting package. When you run the RabbitMQ_InstallPackage.exe, it automatically executes the PowerShell script Install-RabbitMqServer.ps1, which is part of the package. It allows an automated installation of the required components. Please note that the installation will be placed in the default directories of the corresponding programs. After the automated installation, the RabbitMQ server will also be configured with default values for exchanging messages - except the username and its password (those will be asked during the script execution). In detail these parameters are:

VirtualHost	matrix42
ExchangeName	matrix42.suem.topic
ServiceStoreQueueName	matrix42.uux.subscription
EmpirumQueueName	matrix42.empirum.subscription
SilverbackQueueName	matrix42.silverback.subscription

The default connection string based on this installation and configuration would look like this:

amqp://<username>:<password>@<FQDN of your RabbitMQ Server>/matrix42

If you want to install all components semi-automated, please extract the compressed file RabbitMQ_InstallPackage.exe, change the current directory to the package root and execute the script as shown below. You must execute the script as Administrator.

.\Install-RabbitMqServer.ps1

The script will install Erlang, RabbitMQ and the RabbitMQ Management Plugin.
After execution you can login to the management web UI of running RabbitMQ service on the localhost.

http://localhost:15672

Login as user ‘guest’ with password ‘guest’ as default credential.

Don’t forget to change the guest password or disable the guest user entirely (latter is recommended). This user must only be used during installation from and to localhost (https://www.rabbitmq.com/access-control.html).

If you prefer more control over the installation refer to next chapter of manual installation.
Otherwise skip the next chapter about manual installation of RabbitMQ server, and proceed with Next Steps

Manual Installation

For a manual installation, please open the RabbitMQ_InstallPackage.exe with e.g. 7Zip and extract the content.

rabbitmq-server-3.9.5.exe
otp_win64_24.0.exe
Install-RabbitMqServer.ps1
CreateRabbitMqExchangeAndQueues.ps1

Erlang OTP

RabbitMQ requires a 64-bit supported version of Erlang for Windows to be installed.

Use the installer

Start the Erlang OTP installer, e.g. otp_win64_24.0.exe
Click next
Click next
- Optional: define a Destination Folder of choice
Click install and confirm all installations
Click Close
Once Erlang is installed, we need to set Erlang home directory as a variable in your environment so the RabbitMQ installation can find it

Set ERLANG_HOME=C:\Program Files\erl-24.0

Use command line

Run the provided installer with the following parameters from CMD

otp_win64_24.0.exe /S

This will install the Erlang OTP in its default location

C:\Program Files\erl-24.0

Optionally it is possible to define the installation directory as follows

otp_win64_24.0.exe /S /D=

The /D parameter expects a path to which Erlang OTP should be deployed
For the Step by Step guide we will assume you used the default settings
Once Erlang is installed, we need to set Erlang home directory as a variable in your environment so the RabbitMQ installation can find it

Set ERLANG_HOME=C:\Program Files\erl-24.0

Attention: Don’t forget to change the guest password or disable the guest user entirely (latter is recommended). This user must only be used during installation from and to localhost (https://www.rabbitmq.com/access-control.html).

RabbitMQ Server

Use the installer

Start the Rabbit MQ installer, e.g. rabbitmq-server -3.9.5.exe
Press Next
- Optional: define a Destination Folder of choice
Click Install
Press Next
Click Finish

Use command line

Run the provided installer with the following parameters from CMD

rabbitmq-server-3.9.5.exe /S

This will install RabbitMQ server by default to:

C:\Program Files\RabbitMQ Server\rabbitmq_server-3.9.5

It installs RabbitMQ as a Windows service and starts it using the default configuration.

set RABBITMQ_BASE="C:\Program Files\RabbitMQ Server\rabbitmq_server-3.9.5"

Enable RabbitMQ Management Plugin

Start a CMD and change directory to your installation folder:

C:\Program Files\RabbitMQ Server\rabbitmq_server-3.9.5\sbin\

Execute rabbitmq-plugins.bat with the following parameters:

rabbitmq-plugins.bat enable rabbitmq_management

This will install the necessary management plugins of RabbitMQ.
Check the services running on the machine you installed RabbitMQ to.
Start RabbitMQ Service if not already running.
Execute now the rabbitmq-services.bat

rabbitmq-service.bat start

Open Management Console

Once the Management Console is available, it can be accessed via a web browser at: http://localhost:15672
Use a web browser of choice and navigate to: http://localhost:15672
Login as user guest with password guest as default credential.

Install OpenSSL (optional)

If you’re planning to use SSL, use the latest OpenSSL available. Following is a rough sketch of providing RabbitMQ the necessary SSL files

Create a directory within your RabbitMQ installation directory mkdir C:\Program Files\RabbitMQ Server\ssl
Change to the created directory cd C:\Program Files\RabbitMQ Server\ssl
Extract files from your Open SSL source to the SSL directory.
Proceed with the configuration of your TLS support in RabbitMQ as described in the official RabbitMQ manual.

Create Exchange and Queues

Use the PowerShell Script (Matrix42) ‘CreateRabbitMqExchangeAndQueues.ps1’ as administrator to create a Topic Exchange and two queues bound to it in your new RabbitMQ system - if you have not yet configured it by the automated installation and configuration.

.\CreateRabbitMqExchangeAndQueues.ps1 
-ManagerUrl "http://localhost:15672" 
-VirtualHost "matrix42" 
-ExchangeName "matrix42.suem.topic" 
-EmpirumQueueName "matrix42.empirum.subscription" 
-ServiceStoreQueueName "matrix42.uux.subscription"
-SilverbackQueueName "matrix42.silverback.subscription"

Don’t forget to change the guest password or disable the guest user entirely (latter is recommended). This user must only be used during installation from and to localhost (https://www.rabbitmq.com/access-control.html).

ManagerURL	The URL address of the RabbitMQ manager interface
VirtualHost	RabbitMQ is multi-tenant system: connections, exchanges, queues, bindings, user permissions, policies and some other things belong to virtual hosts, logical groups of entities. A virtual host has a name. When an AMQP 0-9-1 client connects to RabbitMQ, it specifies a vhost name to connect to. This name is required by the script to operate correctly. In our example above we used the VirtualHost "matrix42".
ExchangeName	Also known as Topics, Exchanges are message routing agents, defined by the virtual host within RabbitMQ. An exchange is responsible for routing the messages to different queues. In our example above we used the ExchangeName "matrix42.suem.topic"
Empirum Queue Name	EmpirumQueueName is the Queue used by your Empirum UEM Backend to publish messages.
Service Store Queue Name	ServiceStoreQueueName is the Queue used by your UEM Console Backend to receive messages
Silverback Queue Name	Silverback Queue Name is the Queue used by Silverback to publish messages

A username and password for accessing the RabbitMQ system will be created by the powershell script based on your given input.

Review Exchanges and Queues

Navigate back to your RabbitMQ Management Console
Navigate to Exchanges
- You should see the matrix42.suem.topic
Navigate to Queues
- You should see now three new queues
  - matrix42.empirum.subscription
  - matrix42.uux.subscription
  - matrix42.silverback.subscription
Navigate to Admin
- You should see now your previously entered administrative username

Next Steps

Proceed with Service Bus III: Configure Silverback
Review additional information: Service Bus I: RabbitMQ (optional)