A shovel is used to move a message from a queue or exchange to a different queue or exchage. The queues or exchanges can reside on the same RabbitMQ node or on different RabbitMQ nodes.

AVOID TROUBLE

Before you can create a shovel, the rabbitmq_shovel plugin will need to be enabled, and you may want to also enable the rabbitmq_shovel_management plugin so that you can use Shovel Status and Shovel Management in the RabbitMQ web browser console and the RabbitMQ REST API to list/create/delete dynamic shovels. The rabbitmq-plugins list command can be used to determine if the plugins are enabled. If not, the rabbitmq-plugins enable command can be used to enable the plugins.

If the RabbitMQ node is not using SSL, the src-uri or dest-uri should start with amqp://. If SSL is being used, the src-uri or dest-uri should start with amqps://.

There are two types of shovels.

• Dynamic - Created using the rabbitmqctl set_parameter command, or using the RabbitMQ REST API, or using the RabbitMQ web browser console, or using Terraform (this article)
• Static - defined in advanced.config, node must be restarted to create/delete a static shovel

This assumes you have setup Terraform as described in RabbitMQ - Getting Started with Terraform. Let's say you have the following files on your Terraform server.

/usr/local/terraform/main.tf
/usr/local/terraform/foo/required_provider.tf
/usr/local/terraform/foo/bindings.tf
/usr/local/terraform/foo/exchanges.tf
/usr/local/terraform/foo/policies.tf
/usr/local/terraform/foo/queues.tf
/usr/local/terraform/foo/shovels.tf
/usr/local/terraform/foo/vhosts.tf

Add the following to your shovels.tf file. In this example, a dynamic shovel named shovel001 is created that will move messages from foo.queue to bar.queue.

resource "rabbitmq_shovel" "shovel1" {
  name = "shovel001"
  vhost = "foo"
  info {
    ack_mode = "on-confirm"
    source_protocol = "amqp091"
    source_uri = "amqp://john.doe:itsasecret@rabbit001.example.com:5672/foo"
    source_queue = "foo.queue"
    destination_protocol = "amqp091"
    destination_uri = "amqps://john.doe:itsasecret@rabbit002.example.com:5672/bar"
    destination_queue = "bar.queue"
    reconnect_delay = 1
  }
}

Issue the following command to create the queue. 

terraform apply

Something like this should be displayed, and you will be prompted to enter yes.

Terraform will perform the following actions:

  # rabbitmq_shovel.shovel1 will be created
  + resource "rabbitmq_shovel" "shovel1" {
      + id    = (known after apply)
      + name  = "shovel001"
      + vhost = "foo"

      +   info {
        + ack_mode = "on-confirm"
        + source_protocol = "amqp091"
        + source_uri = "amqp://john.doe:itsasecret@rabbit001.example.com:5672/foo"
        + source_queue = "foo.queue"
        + destination_protocol = "amqp091"
        + destination_uri = "amqps://john.doe:itsasecret@rabbit002.example.com:5672/bar"
        + destination_queue = "bar.queue"
        + reconnect_delay = 1
      }
    }

Plan: 1 to add, 0 to change, 0 to destroy.

After entering yes, the following should be displayed.

rabbitmq_shovel.shovel1: Creating...
rabbitmq_shovel.shovel1: Creation complete after 0s [id=shovel001@foo]

Apply complete! Resources: 1 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.