RabbitMQ Cluster Operator packaged by Bitnami

The RabbitMQ Cluster Kubernetes Operator automates provisioning, management, and operations of RabbitMQ clusters running on Kubernetes.

Overview of RabbitMQ Cluster Operator

Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

$ helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
$ helm install my-release bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operator

Introduction

Bitnami charts for Helm are carefully engineered, actively maintained and are the quickest and easiest way to deploy containers on a Kubernetes cluster that are ready to handle production workloads.

This chart bootstraps a RabbitMQ Cluster Operator Deployment in a Kubernetes cluster using the Helm package manager.

Bitnami charts can be used with Kubeapps for deployment and management of Helm Charts in clusters.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes 1.19+
• Helm 3.2.0+
• PV provisioner support in the underlying infrastructure

Installing the Chart

To install the chart with the release name my-release:

helm install my-release bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operators

The command deploy the RabbitMQ Cluster Kubernetes Operator on the Kubernetes cluster in the default configuration. The Parameters section lists the parameters that can be configured during installation.

Tip: List all releases using helm list

Uninstalling the Chart

To uninstall/delete the my-release deployment:

helm delete my-release

The command removes all the Kubernetes components associated with the chart and deletes the release.

Differences between the Bitnami RabbitMQ chart and the Bitnami RabbitMQ Operator chart

In the Bitnami catalog we offer both the bitnami/rabbitmq and bitnami/rabbitmq-operator charts. Each solution covers different needs and use cases.

The bitnami/rabbitmq chart deploys a single RabbitMQ installation using a Kubernetes StatefulSet object (together with Services, PVCs, ConfigMaps, etc.). The figure below shows the deployed objects in the cluster after executing helm install:

                    +--------------+             +-----+
                    |              |             |     |
 Service            |   RabbitMQ   +<------------+ PVC |
<-------------------+              |             |     |
                    |  StatefulSet |             +-----+
                    |              |
                    +-----------+--+
                                ^                +------------+
                                |                |            |
                                +----------------+ Configmaps |
                                                 | Secrets    |
                                                 +------------+

Its lifecycle is managed using Helm and, at the RabbitMQ container level, the following operations are automated: persistence management, configuration based on environment variables and plugin initialization. The StatefulSet do not require any ServiceAccounts with special RBAC privileges so this solution would fit better in more restricted Kubernetes installations.

The bitnami/rabbitmq-operator chart deploys a RabbitMQ Operator installation using a Kubernetes Deployment. The figure below shows the RabbitMQ operator deployment after executing helm install:

+--------------------+
|                    |      +---------------+
|  RabbitMQ Operator |      |               |
|                    |      |     RBAC      |
|     Deployment     |      | Privileges    |
+-------+------------+      +-------+-------+
        ^                           |
        |   +-----------------+     |
        +---+ Service Account +<----+
            +-----------------+

The operator will extend the Kubernetes API with the following object: RabbitmqCluster. From that moment, the user will be able to deploy objects of these kinds and the previously deployed Operator will take care of deploying all the required StatefulSets, ConfigMaps and Services for running a RabbitMQ instance. Its lifecycle is managed using kubectl on the RabbitmqCluster objects. The following figure shows the deployed objects after deploying a RabbitmqCluster object using kubectl:

  +--------------------+
  |                    |      +---------------+
  |  RabbitMQ Operator |      |               |
  |                    |      |     RBAC      |
  |     Deployment     |      | Privileges    |
  +-------+------------+      +-------+-------+
  |     ^                           |
  |     |   +-----------------+     |
  |     +---+ Service Account +<----+
  |         +-----------------+
  |
  |
  |
  |
  |    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  |    |                                                                       |
  |    |                        +--------------+             +-----+           |
  |    |                        |              |             |     |           |
  |--->|     Service            |   RabbitMQ   +<------------+ PVC |           |
       |    <-------------------+              |             |     |           |
       |                        |  StatefulSet |             +-----+           |
       |                        |              |                               |
       |                        +-----------+--+                               |
       |                                    ^                +------------+    |
       |                                    |                |            |    |
       |                                    +----------------+ Configmaps |    |
       |                                                     | Secrets    |    |
       |                                                     +------------+    |
       |                                                                       |
       |                                                                       |
       -------------------------------------------------------------------------

This solution allows to easily deploy multiple RabbitMQ instances compared to the bitnami/rabbitmq chart. As the operator automatically deploys RabbitMQ installations, the RabbitMQ Operator pods will require a ServiceAccount with privileges to create and destroy multiple Kubernetes objects. This may be problematic for Kubernetes clusters with strict role-based access policies.

Parameters

Global parameters

Common parameters

RabbitMQ Cluster Operator Parameters

RabbitMQ Cluster Operator Metrics parameters

RabbitMQ Messaging Topology Operator Parameters

RabbitMQ Messaging Topology Operator parameters

cert-manager parameters

See readme-generator-for-helm to create the table.

The above parameters map to the env variables defined in bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operator. For more information please refer to the bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operator image documentation.

Specify each parameter using the --set key=value[,key=value] argument to helm install. For example,

helm install my-release \
  --set livenessProbe.enabled=false \
    bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operator

The above command disables the Operator liveness probes.

Alternatively, a YAML file that specifies the values for the above parameters can be provided while installing the chart. For example,

helm install my-release -f values.yaml bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operator

Tip: You can use the default values.yaml

Configuration and installation details

Rolling VS Immutable tags

It is strongly recommended to use immutable tags in a production environment. This ensures your deployment does not change automatically if the same tag is updated with a different image.

Bitnami will release a new chart updating its containers if a new version of the main container, significant changes, or critical vulnerabilities exist.

Additional environment variables

In case you want to add extra environment variables (useful for advanced operations like custom init scripts), you can use the extraEnvVars property.

rabbitmq-cluster-operator:
  extraEnvVars:
    - name: LOG_LEVEL
      value: error

Alternatively, you can use a ConfigMap or a Secret with the environment variables. To do so, use the extraEnvVarsCM or the extraEnvVarsSecret values.

Sidecars

If additional containers are needed in the same pod as rabbitmq-cluster-operator (such as additional metrics or logging exporters), they can be defined using the sidecars parameter. If these sidecars export extra ports, extra port definitions can be added using the service.extraPorts parameter. Learn more about configuring and using sidecar containers.

Pod affinity

This chart allows you to set your custom affinity using the affinity parameter. Find more information about Pod affinity in the kubernetes documentation.

As an alternative, use one of the preset configurations for pod affinity, pod anti-affinity, and node affinity available at the bitnami/common chart. To do so, set the podAffinityPreset, podAntiAffinityPreset, or nodeAffinityPreset parameters.

Deploying extra resources

There are cases where you may want to deploy extra objects, such your custom RabbitmqCluster objects. For covering this case, the chart allows adding the full specification of other objects using the extraDeploy parameter.

For instance, to deploy your custom RabbitmqCluster definition, you can install the RabbitMQ Cluster Operator using the values below:

extraDeploy:
  - apiVersion: rabbitmq.com/v1beta1
    kind: RabbitmqCluster
    metadata:
      name: rabbitmq-custom-configuration
    spec:
      replicas: 1
      rabbitmq:
        additionalConfig: |
          log.console.level = debug

Troubleshooting

Find more information about how to deal with common errors related to Bitnami's Helm charts in this troubleshooting guide.

Upgrading

To 2.0.0

This new version adds the following components:

• RabbitMQ Messaging Topology Operator: all the settings are inside the msgTopologyOperator section.
• RabbitMQ Default User Credential Updater sidecar: this enables Hashicorp Vault integration for all RabbitMQCluster instances.
• cert-manager subchart: this is necessary for the RabbitMQ Messaging Topology Webhooks to work.

As a breaking change, all rabbitmq-cluster-operator deployment values were moved to the clusterOperator section.

No issues are expected during upgrades.

To 1.0.0

The CRD was updated according to the latest changes in the upstream project. Thanks to the improvements in the latest changes, the CRD is not templated anymore abd can be placed under the crds directory following Helm best practices for CRDS.

You need to manually delete the old CRD before upgrading the release.

kubectl delete crd rabbitmqclusters.rabbitmq.com
helm upgrade my-release bitnami/rabbitmq-cluster-operator

License

Copyright © 2022 Bitnami

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.