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ProtoRabbit

Electron desktop tool (macOS, Windows(untested) and Linux(untested)) for sending and receiving Protobuf serialized messages to/from RabbitMQ. Protobuf messages are great for a microservice architecture, but they're harder to inspect while debugging so this tool takes care of deserializing and displaying them in JSON form. It also allows manually defining a JSON message that is then serialized with Protobuf and sent to RabbitMQ.

Note: I built this for my own needs and to learn Electron, ViteJs and Playwright.

Build and Run

RabbitMQ

To run it locally you need a RabbitMQ instance. If you already have one, then skip this section, otherwise continue reading. The easiest way to get a running RabbitMQ instance is with Docker. I'm using this command

docker run -d -p 15672:15672 -p 5672:5672 -v $(pwd):/var/lib/rabbitmq --hostname my-proto-rabbit rabbitmq:3-management

Which does the following:

  • exposes port 15672 to make the web interface accessible. You can log in with `guest/guest``
  • exposes port 5672 which is the default port used to communicate with a RabbitMQ instance
  • it maps the current working directory on my host to /var/lib/rabbitmq which persists data locally

Node

I'm using Node 16

Look inside package.json to get a feeling, but basically you can start from the CLI with npm run dev. If you use VSCode, you can just choose the Electron: all configuration and press F5.

Usage

Connect

Enter the connection data to the RabbitMQ instance

Connect to RabbitMQ

Connected to RabbitMQ

Define a Template for Sending Messages

If you want to send protobuf messages to RabbitMQ, then you have to define a new template for the messages that you'll be sending. Click the little + icon in the Send section and provide the following data:

  • name: a human readable name for you message template.
  • exchange: the name of the exchange where the messages should be sent, e.g. proto.data
  • routing key: the routing key to use for each message, e.g. user.add
  • protofile: the protobuf definition to use to serialize your messages before sending them.
  • message sample: just a sample message to get you going. Please use JSON to specify the sample.

Note #1: after creating the sendable message sample you might need to select it from the dropdown.

Note #2: When a sendable message template is selected, you can edit the JSON message (editor on the left hand side) and the click Send Message.

Note #3: Make sure that your JSON message is structurally compatible with the protofile that you defined. Also trailing commas after the last property of a JSON message is not allowed, the editor should inform you about this. You can always go and edit or delete message templates.

Add a template for a sendable message

Start a Message Subscription

If you want to receive protobuf messages from RabbitMQ, e.g. from a microservice, you have to define a new message subscription. Click the + button in the Receive section and provide the following data:

  • name: a human readable name to distinguish one subscription from another, e.g. User Added Sub
  • exchange: the exchange where you want to receive messages from, e.g. proto.data
  • routing key: the routing key of the messages that you want to receive, user.add
  • queue name: the name of the queue to put the messages in when they arrive, e.g. protorabbit.user.add. They'll be consumed immediately.

Note: after creating the message subscription you might need to select it in the list.

Add a message subscription

That's it!

You are now set to send and receive messages. Active subscription with messages