PubSub-over-Webhooks with RabbitHub

RabbitHub is an implementation of PubSubHubBub, a straightforward pubsub layer on top of plain old HTTP POST - pubsub over Webhooks. RabbitHub provides an HTTP-based interface to RabbitMQ.

It gives every AMQP exchange and queue hosted by a RabbitMQ broker a couple of URLs: one to use for delivering messages to the exchange or queue, and one to use to subscribe to messages forwarded on by the exchange or queue. You subscribe with a callback URL, so when messages arrive, RabbitHub POSTs them on to your callback. For example,

• http://dev.rabbitmq.com/rabbithub/endpoint/x/amq.direct is the URL for delivering messages to the "amq.direct" exchange on the public test instance of RabbitMQ, and

• http://dev.rabbitmq.com/rabbithub/subscribe/q/some_queue_name is the URL for subscribing to messages from the (hypothetical) queue "some_queue_name" on the broker.

The symmetrical .../subscribe/x/... and .../endpoint/q/... also exist.

The PubSubHubBub protocol specifies some RESTful(ish) operations for establishing subscriptions between message sources (a.k.a "topics") and message sinks. RabbitHub implements these operations as well as a few more for RESTfully creating and deleting exchanges and queues.

While PubSubHubBub is written assuming Atom content, RabbitHub is content-agnostic (just like RabbitMQ): any content at all can be sent using RabbitHub's implementation of the PubSubHubBub protocol. Because RabbitHub is content-agnostic, it doesn't implement any of the Atom-specific parts of the PubSubHubBub protocol, including the "ping" operation that tells a PSHB hub to re-fetch content feeds.

Example: combining HTTP messaging with AMQP and XMPP

Combining RabbitHub with the AMQP protocol implemented by RabbitMQ itself and with the other adapters and gateways that form part of the RabbitMQ universe lets you send messages across different kinds of message networks - for example, our public RabbitMQ instance, dev.rabbitmq.com, has RabbitHub running as well as the standard AMQP adapter, the rabbitmq-xmpp plugin, and a bunch of our other experimental stuff, so you can do things like this:

• become XMPP friends with [email protected] (the XMPP adapter gives each exchange a JID of its own)

• use PubSubHubBub to subscribe the sink http://dev.rabbitmq.com/rabbithub/endpoint/x/pshb to some PubSubHubBub source - perhaps one on the public Google PSHB instance. (Note how the given URL ends in "x/pshb", meaning the "pshb" exchange - which lines up with the JID we just became XMPP friends with.)

• wait for changes to be signalled by Google's PSHB hub to RabbitHub

• when they are, you get an XMPP IM from [email protected] with the Atom XML that the hub sent out as the body

Again, RabbitHub is content-agnostic, so the fact that Atom appears is an artifact of what Google's public PSHB instance is mailing out, rather than anything intrinsic in pubsub-over-webhooks.

Installation

To install from source (requires Erlang R15B01 or higher):

git clone https://github.com/brc859844/rabbithub
cd rabbithub
make deps
make
make package
cp dist/*.ez $RABBITMQ_HOME/plugins

Note that Windows users can build the plugin using the commands under Cygwin. When working with Cygwin ensure that the Erlang bin directory is in your PATH (so that rebar can find erl and erlc) and that the zip utility is installed with your Cygwin installation (required to create the plugin ez file).

Enable the plugin:

rabbitmq-plugins enable rabbithub

By default the plugin will listen for HTTP requests on port 15670.

Note that if no username is specified for HTTP requests submitted to RabbitHub then RabbitHub checks to see whether a default username has been specified for the rabbithub application, and if so uses it. By default RabbitHub is configured to use a default username of guest (see the definition of default_username in rabbithub.app). This configuration might be reasonable for development and testing (aside from security testing); however for production environments this will most likely not be ideal, and the default username should therefore be deleted or changed to a RabbitMQ username that has only the required permissions. It is generally also a good idea to disable the RabbitMQ guest user, or to at least reduce the permissions of guest (when RabbitMQ is initially installed, the username guest has full permissions and a rather well-known password).

HTTP messaging in the Browser

In order to push AMQP messages out to a webpage running in a browser, try using http://www.reversehttp.net/ to run a PubSubHubBub endpoint in a webpage - see for instance http://www.reversehttp.net/demos/endpoint.html and its associated Javascript for a simple prototype of the idea. It's also possible to build simple PSHB hubs in Javascript using the same tools.

Proxy server support

If RabbitHub is being used behind a firewall, it may be necessary to route HTTP(s) requests to callback URLs via a proxy server. A proxy server can be specified for RabbitHub by defining http_client_options in rabbitmq.config as illustrated below, where the same proxy server has been specified for both HTTP and HTTPS, and the proxy server will not be used for requests to localhost.

[
    {rabbithub, [
        {http_client_options, [
            {proxy,{{"10.1.1.1",8080}, ["localhost"]}},
            {https_proxy,{{"10.1.1.1",8080},["localhost"]}}
        ]}
    ]}
].

Note that proxy server support is only available in RabbitHub for RabbitMQ 3.2.1 or higher.

Software License

RabbitHub is open-source code, licensed under the very liberal MIT license:

Copyright (c) 2009 Tony Garnock-Jones <[email protected]>
Copyright (c) 2009 LShift Ltd. <[email protected]>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy,
modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
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DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.