[rabbitmq-discuss] RabbitMQ memory limit and shutting down

Mon Aug 12 09:52:44 BST 2013

Hi,

On 12/08/13 09:22, Nikita Trophimov wrote:

> Recently, I tried to check RabbitMQ in some critical situations, and 
> found that if it doesn't have enough memory it will be turned off 
> without subsequent restart. 

You should see the broker blocking connections instead of a broker
shutdown. The broker is still running and further messages will be
accepted as soon as some memory has been cleared by flushing messages
from RAM to disk.

Also see http://www.rabbitmq.com/memory.html#memsup

> We need to create a stable system, so I'm wondering if we can do
> anything in this kind of situation (maybe more frequent garbage
> collector calls, certain configuration, etc).

There are a number of things you can do to reduce the likelihood of
memory-based flow control:

 Add more RAM
 Increase the flow control threshold
 Define queues on different nodes in a cluster to spread the load
 Use faster disks

-Emile