Does rabbitmq delete messages from physical storage

Question

I have durable exchanges and queues in my application. The messages are persistent too. Using this configuration i am sure my messages gets stored in physical storage. I want to know if there is any expiry time when rabbitmq delete messages from my physical storage i mean the hard disk as it maintains the message store in it. Also in case i want to read the messages from physical storage then can i do so?

Answer 1

Durable queue + Persistent messages means indeed the messages will be kept. Exceptions to this statement out of the top of my head:

• you would have configured additional properties to your queues, for exemple limits in size
• you reach the limit to the underlying filesystem
• you delete the queues (this would delete the messages stored in it too)

As to reading the messages stored in the queues, you can typically consume them.

If you want to read them without them being deleted, you'd have few options:

• trick the broker (for example by reading all of them but never acknowledging them, which would have them brought back into the queue)
• republish them again to the broker for storage after reading them

But if indeed further conservation is desired, I'd seriously consider storing them somewhere else (DB of some kind) at it's clearly outside of the purpose of a message broker.