How to use rabbitmqctl to connect to the rabbitmqserver in the docker container?

Assuming your container is called rabbitmq and is running:

docker exec rabbitmq rabbitmqctl start_app

rabbitmqctl uses Erlang Distributed Protocol (EDP) to communicate with RabbitMQ. Port 5672 provides AMQP protocol. You can investigate EDP port that your RabbitMQ instance uses:

$ netstat -uptan | grep beamtcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:55950           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      31446/beam.smp  tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:15672           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      31446/beam.smp  tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:55672           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      31446/beam.smp  tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:55096         127.0.0.1:4369          ESTABLISHED 31446/beam.smp  tcp6       0      0 :::5672                 :::*                    LISTEN      31446/beam.smp  

It means that RabbitMQ:

• connected to EPMD (Erlang Port Mapper Daemon) on 127.0.0.1:4369 to make nodes able to see each other
• waits for incoming EDP connection on port 55950
• waits for AMQP connection on port 5672 and 55672
• waits for incoming HTTP management connection on port 15672

To make rabbitmqctl able to connect to RabbitMQ you also have to forward port 55950 and allow RabbitMQ instance connect to 127.0.0.1:4369.It is possible that RabbitMQ EDP port is dinamic, so to make it static you can try to use ERL_EPMD_PORT variable of Erlang environment variables or use inet_dist_listen_min and inet_dist_listen_max of Erlang Kernel configuration options and apply it with RabbitMQ environment variable - export RABBITMQ_CONFIG_FILE="/path/to/my_rabbitmq.conf

my_rabbitmq.conf

[{kernel,[{inet_dist_listen_min, 55950},{inet_dist_listen_min, 55950}]}].

Or you can use RabbitMQ Management Plugin. It is more functional and simple to setup.

I got this error trying to setup RabbitMQ on a cluster on an ubuntu and fedora machine:

el@apollo:/etc/rabbitmq$ sudo rabbitmqctl join_cluster rabbit@192.168.1.8Clustering node rabbit@apollo with 'rabbit@192.168.1.8' ...Error: unable to connect to nodes ['rabbit@192.168.1.8']: nodedownDIAGNOSTICS===========attempted to contact: ['rabbit@192.168.1.8']rabbit@192.168.1.8:  * unable to connect to epmd (port 4369) on 192.168.1.8: address     (cannot connect to host/port)current node details:- node name: rabbitmqctl7233@apollo- home dir: /var/lib/rabbitmq- cookie hash: g0tS9zEdo7OEDSZaDTGirA==

I was able to eliminate this error by opening the 4369 and 59984 port on the 192.168.1.8 machine that is one of the slave nodes of the cluster:

el@defiant ~ $ su -Password:[root@defiant ~]# iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 4369 --syn -j ACCEPT[root@defiant ~]# iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 59984 --syn -j ACCEPT