If you want VMware Cloud Director to send AMQP messages triggered by certain events, you must configure an AMQP broker. You can use the AMQP messages to automate the handling of an underlying user request.

Note: Starting with VMware Cloud Director 10.6, the AMQP-based functionality is deprecated. To ensure continued support, consider using an equivalent MQTT-backed functionality.

To use an AMQP broker, you must create manually a system exchange in advance. VMware Cloud Director uses the configured system exchange to collect notifications in XML format. VMware Cloud Director publishes notifications in JSON format on an automatically created exchange with a name using the prefix.notifications20 format, for example, vcd.notifications20. There are other automatically created exchanges that VMware Cloud Director uses for the API extensibility services. The extension names for these services use the prefix.replyExchange format and prefix.replyQueue.cell_UUID format.

Prerequisites

If you want to use SSL, you can test the connection to the AMQP host and establish a trust relationship with it. See Test the VMware Cloud Director Connection to a Remote Server and Establish a Trust Relationship Using the Service Provider Admin Portal.

Procedure

  1. From the primary left navigation panel, select Administration.
  2. Under Settings, select Extensibility.
    The AMQP Broker tab opens.
  3. Click the Edit button of the AMQP Broker section.
  4. Enter the DNS host name or IP address of the AMQP host.
    The fully qualified domain name of the RabbitMQ server host, for example, amqp.example.com.
  5. Enter the AMQP port.
    The default port at which the broker listens to messages is 5672.
  6. Enter the exchange.

    The exchange is the central point in RabbitMQ, where VMware Cloud Director directs all messages. After installing the broker for VMware Cloud Director, you must access the RabbitMQ management UI at http://<HOSTNAME>:15672/ and create the exchange in the RabbitMQ environment.

    The exchange type must be topic and the exchange durability must be durable. The minimum account permissions can be publish, subscribe, create exchange, and create queue.

  7. Enter the vHost.
    The default is /.
  8. Enter the prefix.
  9. (Optional) To use SSL, turn on the Use SSL toggle and select one of the certificate options.

    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.

    Option Description
    SSL Certificate Upload the SSL certificate.
    SSL Key Store (JCEKS) Upload the SSL keystore and enter the keystore password.
  10. Enter a user name and password to connect to the AMQP host.
  11. Click Save.
  12. (Optional) To test the settings, click the Test button under the AMQP Broker section and provide the password.
    The connection test only performs a connection attempt and does not verify the publishing of a message or a check of the exchange configuration.
  13. (Optional) To publish audit events to the AMQP broker, click the Edit button under the Non-blocking AMQP Notifications section and turn on the Enable notifications toggle.