Help Center/ Distributed Message Service for RabbitMQ/ User Guide/ Advanced Features/ Configuring RabbitMQ Persistence
Updated on 2025-07-31 GMT+08:00
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Configuring RabbitMQ Persistence

By default, messages produced by RabbitMQ producers are stored in the memory. When a node breaks down or restarts, messages are lost. RabbitMQ can persist data during such events for exchanges, queues, and messages.

Persistence means writing messages in the memory to the disk to prevent them from being lost due to exceptions. However, if message persistence is enabled, RabbitMQ performance deteriorates because read and write operations are much slower in disks than in memory. Different from the lazy queue mechanism, a persisted message is stored in both the disk and memory. It is deleted from the memory only when the memory is insufficient.

Notes and Constraints

  • Non-persistent queues and exchanges are lost after a restart.
  • Non-persistent messages are lost after a restart. (Messages that are sent to persistent queues or exchanges will not automatically become persistent.)
  • A message will be lost if the server restarts before the message persistence is complete.
  • RabbitMQ AMQP-0-9-1 exchanges, queues, and messages support persistence.

Configuring Exchange Persistence

Exchange persistence can be configured on the management UI or RabbitMQ console.

  1. Log in to the RabbitMQ management UI.
  2. Click the Exchanges tab.
  3. Create an exchange and set durable to true, as shown in Figure 1.

    Figure 1 Configuring exchange persistence (management UI)
    Table 1 Exchange creation parameters

    Parameter

    Description

    Name

    Exchange name, which is user-defined.

    Type

    Exchange type.

    Select a value from the drop-down list.

    • direct: Exchanges route messages to matching queues based on the routing keys.
    • fanout: Exchanges route messages to all bound queues.
    • topic: Exchanges route messages to queues based on routing key wildcard matching.
    • headers: Exchanges are related to the message headers. Routing keys are not used. Exchanges route messages based on matching between key-value pairs in the message headers and the binding (a key-value pair).

    Durability

    Whether to enable persistence.

    • Durable: The exchange survives server restart.
    • Transient: The exchange will be deleted after server restarts and needs to be recreated.

    Auto delete

    Whether to enable automatic deletion.

    • Yes: This exchange will be automatically deleted when the last bound queue unbound from the exchange.
    • No: This exchange will not be deleted when the last bound queue unbound from the exchange.

    Internal

    Indicates whether exchanges are for internal use.

    • Yes: This exchange can only bind another exchange instead of a queue.
    • No: This exchange can bind other exchanges and queues.

    Arguments

    Set durable=true to configure exchange persistence.

  4. In the exchange list, move the cursor to Args of the new exchange, as shown in Figure 2. If durable: true is displayed in the floating window, the exchange persistence is configured successfully.

    Figure 2 Exchange persistence configured (management UI)

  1. Create an exchange by referring to Creating a RabbitMQ Exchange and configure exchange persistence, as shown in Figure 3.

    Figure 3 Configuring exchange persistence (console)

  2. In the exchange list, check whether persistence is enabled for the new exchange. If Yes is displayed in the Persistence column, persistence is enabled, as shown in Figure 4.

    Figure 4 Exchange persistence configured (console)

Configuring Queue Persistence

Queue persistence can be configured on the management UI or RabbitMQ console.

  1. Log in to the RabbitMQ management UI.
  2. Click the Queues tab.
  3. Create a queue and set Durability to Durable.

    Figure 5 Creating queues
    Table 2 Queue parameters

    Parameter

    Description

    Type

    Queue type.

    Name

    Name of the single active consumer queue, which is user-defined.

    Durability

    Whether to enable persistence. Set Durability to Durable.

    • Durable: This queue survives after server restart.
    • Transient: This queue will be deleted after server restart and needs to be recreated.

    Node

    Node where a single active consumer queue is deployed.

    Auto delete

    Whether to enable automatic deletion.

    • Yes: This queue will be automatically deleted when the last consumer unsubscribes from the queue.
    • No: This queue will not be deleted when the last consumer unsubscribes from the queue.

    (Optional) Arguments

    Queue attribute. You do not need to set it.

  4. Click Add queue.
  5. On the Queues page, check whether the new queue is a persistent queue. If Features is D, the queue is a persistent queue.

    Figure 6 Viewing queue attributes

  1. Create a queue by referring to Creating a RabbitMQ Queue and set the queue persistence, as shown in Figure 7.

    Figure 7 Configuring queue persistence (console)

  2. In the queue list, check whether persistence is enabled for the new queue. If Yes is displayed in the Persistence column, as shown in Figure 8, persistence is enabled.

    Figure 8 Queue persistence configured (console)

Configuring Message Persistence

After configuring queue persistence, set MessageProperties to PERSISTENT_TEXT_PLAIN on the client to send persistent messages to the queue.

The following example shows how to configure message persistence on a Java client.

import com.rabbitmq.client.MessageProperties;
channel.basicPublish("", "my_queue",MessageProperties.PERSISTENT_TEXT_PLAIN, message.getBytes());
Parent Topic: Advanced Features