RabbitMQ / AMQP: single queue, multiple consumers for same message?

Question

Can I have each consumer receive the same messages? Ie, both consumers get message 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6? What is this called in AMQP/RabbitMQ speak? How is it normally configured?

No, not if the consumers are on the same queue. From RabbitMQ's AMQP Concepts guide:

it is important to understand that, in AMQP 0-9-1, messages are load balanced between consumers.

This seems to imply that round-robin behavior within a queue is a given, and not configurable. Ie, separate queues are required in order to have the same message ID be handled by multiple consumers.

Is this commonly done? Should I just have the exchange route the message into two separate queues, with a single consumer, instead?

No it's not, single queue/multiple consumers with each each consumer handling the same message ID isn't possible. Having the exchange route the message onto into two separate queues is indeed better.

As I don't require too complex routing, a fanout exchange will handle this nicely. I didn't focus too much on Exchanges earlier as node-amqp has the concept of a 'default exchange' allowing you to publish messages to a connection directly, however most AMQP messages are published to a specific exchange.

Here's my fanout exchange, both sending and receiving:

var amqp = require('amqp');
var connection = amqp.createConnection({ host: "localhost", port: 5672 });
var count = 1;

connection.on('ready', function () {
  connection.exchange("my_exchange", options={type:'fanout'}, function(exchange) {   

    var sendMessage = function(exchange, payload) {
      console.log('about to publish')
      var encoded_payload = JSON.stringify(payload);
      exchange.publish('', encoded_payload, {})
    }

    // Recieve messages
    connection.queue("my_queue_name", function(queue){
      console.log('Created queue')
      queue.bind(exchange, ''); 
      queue.subscribe(function (message) {
        console.log('subscribed to queue')
        var encoded_payload = unescape(message.data)
        var payload = JSON.parse(encoded_payload)
        console.log('Recieved a message:')
        console.log(payload)
      })
    })

    setInterval( function() {    
      var test_message = 'TEST '+count
      sendMessage(exchange, test_message)  
      count += 1;
    }, 2000) 
 })
})

The last couple of answers are almost correct - I have tons of apps that generate messages that need to end up with different consumers so the process is very simple.

If you want multiple consumers to the same message, do the following procedure.

Create multiple queues, one for each app that is to receive the message, in each queue properties, "bind" a routing tag with the amq.direct exchange. Change you publishing app to send to amq.direct and use the routing-tag (not a queue). AMQP will then copy the message into each queue with the same binding. Works like a charm :)

Example: Lets say I have a JSON string I generate, I publish it to the "amq.direct" exchange using the routing tag "new-sales-order", I have a queue for my order_printer app that prints order, I have a queue for my billing system that will send a copy of the order and invoice the client and I have a web archive system where I archive orders for historic/compliance reasons and I have a client web interface where orders are tracked as other info comes in about an order.

So my queues are: order_printer, order_billing, order_archive and order_tracking All have the binding tag "new-sales-order" bound to them, all 4 will get the JSON data.

This is an ideal way to send data without the publishing app knowing or caring about the receiving apps.

Just read the rabbitmq tutorial. You publish message to exchange, not to queue; it is then routed to appropriate queues. In your case, you should bind separate queue for each consumer. That way, they can consume messages completely independently.

Yes each consumer can receive the same messages. have a look at http://www.rabbitmq.com/tutorials/tutorial-three-python.html http://www.rabbitmq.com/tutorials/tutorial-four-python.html http://www.rabbitmq.com/tutorials/tutorial-five-python.html

for different ways to route messages. I know they are for python and java but its good to understand the principles, decide what you are doing and then find how to do it in JS. Its sounds like you want to do a simple fanout (tutorial 3), which sends the messages to all queues connected to the exchange.

The difference with what you are doing and what you want to do is basically that you are going to set up and exchange or type fanout. Fanout excahnges send all messages to all connected queues. Each queue will have a consumer that will have access to all the messages separately.

Yes this is commonly done, it is one of the features of AMPQ.

The send pattern is a one-to-one relationship. If you want to "send" to more than one receiver you should be using the pub/sub pattern. See http://www.rabbitmq.com/tutorials/tutorial-three-python.html for more details.