Install and Configure a RabbitMQ AMQP Broker for VMware Cloud Director

If you want to use blocking tasks, notifications, or VMware Cloud Director API extensions, you can install and configure a RabbitMQ AMQP Broker.

The Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP), is an open standard for message queuing that supports flexible messaging for enterprise systems. VMware Cloud Director uses the RabbitMQ AMQP broker to provide the message bus used by extension services, object extensions, and notifications.

For VMware Cloud Director, using an MQTT client can be an alternative to the RabbitMQ AMQP Broker when configuring notifications. See Subscribe to Events, Tasks, and Metrics by Using an MQTT Client.

Procedure

1. Download the RabbitMQ Server from https://www.rabbitmq.com/download.html.
   See the VMware Cloud Director Release Notes for the list of supported RabbitMQ releases.
2. Follow the RabbitMQ installation instructions and install RabbitMQ on a supported host.
   The RabbitMQ server host must be reachable on the network by each VMware Cloud Director cell.
3. During the RabbitMQ installation, make a note of the values that are required for configuring VMware Cloud Director to work with this RabbitMQ installation.
   • The fully qualified domain name of the RabbitMQ server host, for example, amqp.example.com.
   • A user name and password that are valid for authenticating with RabbitMQ.
   • The port at which the broker listens for messages. The default is 5672 for non-SSL. The default port for SSL/TLS is 5671.
   • The communication protocol is TCP.
   • The RabbitMQ virtual host. The default is "/".

What to do next

By default, the VMware Cloud Director AMQP service sends unencrypted messages. You can configure the AMQP service to encrypt these messages by using SSL. You can also configure the service to verify the broker certificate by using the default JCEKS trust store of the Java runtime environment on the VMware Cloud Director cell, typically at $VCLOUD_HOME/jre/lib/security/cacerts.

To enable SSL with the VMware Cloud Director AMQP service, see the Configure an AMQP Broker information in the VMware Cloud Director Service Provider Admin Guide.