Change Default 'home' Path in Erlang to Resolve RabbitMQ Start Up Error

Question

I'm new to rabbitmq and by association new to erlang. I'm running into a problem where I cannot start rabbitmq as the 'home' location for the .erlang.cookie has been changed. I've run the command

init:get_argument(home).

which returns

{ok,[["H:\\"]]}

this is an issue, as this is a network drive I do not always have access to. I need to be able to change the 'home' directory to something local.

when I run

rabbitmqctl status

it gives me the following error:

{error_logger,{{2013,7,5},{14,47,10}},"Failed to create cookie file 'h:/.erlang.cookie': enoent",[]}

which again leads me to believe that there is an issue with the home argument. I need to be able to change this location to something local.

Versions:

Erlang R16B01 32 bit
RabbitMQ 3.1.3
Running on Win7

I have uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times hoping to resolve this. I am looking for a way to change the 'home' location in erlang so rabbitmq can properly start.

Answer 1

The solution I came up with was to not bother with the installed service. I used the rabbitmq-server.bat to start the service, SET HOMEDRIVE=C: at the start of the file. I'm planing to run this from a parent service so that I can install this on servers.

Final note to earlang and rabbitMQ developers; using pre-existing environment variables for you own purposes is just wrong. You should create your own, or better yet put this stuff in a configuration file. Telling people to talk to their system administrators to change the HOMEDRIVE and APPDATA variables is arrogant to say the least.

Answer 2

You need to set the correct values ​​for variables $HOMEDRIVE and $HOMEPATH. These links should help:

• Permanently Change Environment Variables in Windows
• Overriding HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH as a Windows 7 user