[rabbitmq-discuss] direct exchanges / routing key necessary?

[Alexis Richardson]

Marek,

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 6:08 PM, Marek Janda <nyx at nyx.cz> wrote:
> Hello,
> I just need to confirm one thing.
>
> If I send some message to direct exchange, is there any way to bind queue to
> it that you'll get the message even without knowing it's routing key? I want
> to use RK as a "password" so that every user can subscribe only to messages
> addressed to him - so I need to know if there isn't some way to create
> wildcard match and subscribe to all messages.

As I recall there are no wildcards with direct exchanges.

Wildcards are appropriate for topic exchanges where they are explicit
(*, #), and fanout exchanges where they are implicit since fanout
implement full broadcast to all bound queues.

However, note that with direct exchanges there is nothing in the spec
to prevent someone who knows the password binding to a given exchange
once they know the key.  So if I know your password then I can see a
copy of your messages, as well as mine.  And vice versa.

You may want to look at ACLs in RabbitMQ:
http://www.nabble.com/ACLs-td21615692.html  Users who do not have
permission to manage their own bindings, and who can only send and
receive messages, will not be able to add bindings and hence
compromise your scheme.  I think but am not 100% that this is possible
with how RabbitMQ currently implements ACLs.


> After reading documentation, searching the web and looking into source (well,
> I've seen Erlang for the first time in my life), I think it should require the
> key, but I'd like to be 100% sure I didn't miss anything.

:-)

I am hopeful that one of the RabbitMQ engineers will substantiate or
correct my comments above with some detail.  It's a holiday weekend
here in the UK so this may not happen instantly.


> Also, is it ok to send everything to one exchange or should I create more
> exchanges and divide users between them? From the performance POV.

In the case of RabbitMQ that's somewhat moot and depends on the
details of your use case.  Fanout exchanges are computationally
cheaper than direct, since there is one fewer lookup step, and topic
exchanges are more complex than direct.  But there may be other
factors to consider.

If you wanted to implement the twitter follower pattern for example,
you could EITHER use one direct exchange (bind to the exchange with
the key of the person you follow), OR have one fanout exchange per
user (bind to the exchange of anyone you follow).  Happy to explain
more if you like...

alexis





> Thank you
>
> --
> S pozdravem
> Marek Janda
>
> _______________________________________________
> rabbitmq-discuss mailing list
> rabbitmq-discuss at lists.rabbitmq.com
> http://lists.rabbitmq.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rabbitmq-discuss
>