IBM Cloud Docs
Creating Users and Getting Connection Strings

Creating Users and Getting Connection Strings

To connect to IBM Cloud® Messages for RabbitMQ, you need some users and some connection strings. Connection Strings for your deployment are displayed on the Dashboard Overview, in the Endpoints panel.

Endpoints panel
Endpoints panel

You can also grab connection strings from the CLI and the API.

A Messages for RabbitMQ deployment is provisioned with an admin user, and after you set the admin password, you can use its credentials to connect to your deployment.

Credentials and Connection Strings for more users

Access to your Messages for RabbitMQ deployment is not limited to the root user. You can create users by using the Service Credentials panel, the IBM CLI, or through the IBM Cloud Databases API.

All users on your deployment can use the connection strings, including connection strings for either public or private endpoints.

Not all users get the same privileges regarding administering RabbitMQ. To read more about which users get what privileges see the Managing Users page.

From the Service Credentials UI

  1. Navigate to the service dashboard for your service.
  2. Click Service Credentials to open the Service Credentials panel.
  3. Click New Credential.
  4. Choose a descriptive name for your new credential.
  5. (Optional) Specify whether the new credentials use a public or private endpoint. Use either { "service-endpoints": "public" } / { "service-endpoints": "private" } in the Add Inline Configuration Parameters field to generate connection strings that use the specified endpoint. Use of the endpoint is not enforced. It controls which hostnames are in the connection strings. Public endpoints are generated by default.
  6. Click Add to provision the new credentials. A username and password, and an associated RabbitMQ user is auto-generated.

The new credentials appear in the table, and the connection strings are available as JSON in a click-to-copy field under View Credentials.

From the CLI

If you manage your service through the IBM Cloud CLI and the cloud databases plug-in, you can create a new user with cdb user-create. For example, to create a new user for an "example-deployment", use the following command.

ibmcloud cdb user-create example-deployment <newusername> <newpassword>

Once the task is finished, you can retrieve the new user's connection strings with the ibmcloud cdb deployment-connections command.

ibmcloud cdb deployment-connections example-deployment -u <newusername> [--endpoint-type <endpoint type>]

Full connection information is returned by the ibmcloud cdb deployment-connections command with the --all flag. To retrieve all the connection information for a deployment named "example-deployment", use the following command.

ibmcloud cdb deployment-connections example-deployment -u <newusername> --all [--endpoint-type <endpoint type>]

If you don't specify a user, the deployment-connections commands return information for the admin user by default. If you don't specify an endpoint type, the connection string returns the public endpoint by default. If your deployment has only a private endpoint, you must specify --endpoint-type private or the commands return an error. The user and endpoint type is not enforced. You can use any user on your deployment with either endpoint (if both exist on your deployment).

To use the ibmcloud cdb CLI commands, you must install the Cloud Databases plug-in.

From the API

The Foundation Endpoint that is shown on the Overview panel of your service provides the base URL to access this deployment through the API. To create and manage users, use the base URL with the /users endpoint.

curl -X POST 'https://api.{region}.databases.cloud.ibm.com/v4/ibm/deployments/{id}/users' \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $APIKEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"username":"jane_smith", "password":"newsupersecurepassword"}'

To retrieve user's connection strings, use the base URL with the /users/{userid}/connections endpoint. You must specify in the path which user and which type of endpoint (public or private) is used in the returned connection strings. The user and endpoint type is not enforced. You can use any user on your deployment with either endpoint (if both exist on your deployment).

curl -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIKEY" 'https://api.{region}.databases.cloud.ibm.com/v4/ibm/deployments/{id}/users/{userid}/connections/{endpoint_type}'

Adding users to Service Credentials

Creating a new user from the CLI or API doesn't automatically populate that user's connection strings into Service Credentials. If you want to add them there, you can create a new credential with the existing user information.

Enter the username and password in the JSON field Add Inline Configuration Parameters, or specify a file where the JSON information is stored. For example, {"existing_credentials":{"username":"Robert","password":"supersecure"}}.

Generating credentials from an existing user does not check for or create that user.

Connection String Breakdown

The amqps Section

The "amqps" section contains information that is suited for your applications that make connections to RabbitMQ.

RabbitMQ/uri connection information
Field Name Index Description
Type Type of connection - for RabbitMQ, it is "uri"
Scheme Scheme for a URI - for RabbitMQ, it is "amqps"
Path Path for a uri
Authentication Username The username that you use to connect.
Authentication Password A password for the user - might be shown as $PASSWORD
Authentication Method How authentication takes place; "direct" authentication is handled by the driver.
Hosts 0... A hostname and port to connect to
Composed 0... A URI combining Scheme, Authentication, Host, and Path
Certificate Name The allocated name for the self-signed certificate for database deployment
Certificate Base64 A base64 encoded version of the certificate.
  • 0... indicates that there might be one or more of these entries in an array.

For more information on using this information to connect, see the Connecting an External Application page.

The stomp_ssl Section

The stomp_ssl section contains the information that a STOMP client needs to connect to your deployment.

RabbitMQ/stomp_ssl connection information
Field Name Index Description
Type Type of connection - for STOMP, it is stomp
Authentication Username The username that you use to connect.
Authentication Password A password for the user - might be shown as $PASSWORD
Authentication Method How authentication takes place; "direct" authentication is handled by the driver.
Hosts 0... A hostname and port to connect to, also contains the protocol name "stomp-ssl"
Composed 0... A URI combining Authentication, Host, and TLS/SSL
ssl The TLS/SSL setting needed for a connection. Should always be true.
Certificate Name The allocated name for the self-signed certificate for database deployment
Certificate Base64 A base64 encoded version of the certificate.
  • 0... indicates that there might be one or more of these entries in an array.

The mqtts Section

The mqtts section contains the information that an MQTT client needs to connect to your deployment.

RabbitMQ/mqtts connection information
Field Name Index Description
Type Type of connection - for MQTTS it is uri.
Scheme Scheme for a URI - in this case it is mqtts.
Authentication Username The username that you use to connect.
Authentication Password A password for the user - might be shown as $PASSWORD
Authentication Method How authentication takes place; "direct" authentication is handled by the driver.
Hosts 0... A hostname and port to connect to.
Composed 0... A URI combining Authentication, Host, and Port used to connect.
Certificate Name The allocated name for the self-signed certificate for database deployment
Certificate Base64 A base64 encoded version of the certificate.
  • 0... indicates that there might be one or more of these entries in an array.

The CLI and https Sections

The CLI section contains information that is suited for the management plug-in and command-line clients that make connections to RabbitMQ.

rabbitmqadmin/cli connection information
Field Name Index Description
Bin The recommended binary to create a connection; in this case it is rabbitmqadmin.
Composed A formatted command to establish a connection to your deployment. The command combines the Bin executable, Environment variable settings, and uses Arguments as command-line parameters.
Environment A list of key/values you set as environment variables.
Arguments 0... The information that is passed as arguments to the command shown in the Bin field.
Certificate Base64 A self-signed certificate that is used to confirm that an application is connecting to the appropriate server. It is base64 encoded.
Certificate Name The allocated name for the self-signed certificate.
Type The type of package that uses this connection information; in this case cli.
  • 0... indicates that there might be one or more of these entries in an array.

The https section contains information that you can use to access the RabbitMQ management plug-in via web browser.

https/uri connection information
Field Name Index Description
Type Type of connection - for RabbitMQ, it is uri
Scheme Scheme for a URI - for RabbitMQ, it is https
Path Path for a URI
Authentication Username The username that you use to connect.
Authentication Password A password for the user - might be shown as $PASSWORD
Authentication Method How authentication takes place; "direct" authentication is handled by the driver.
Hosts 0... A hostname and port to connect to
Composed 0... A URI combining Scheme, Authentication, Host, and Path
Certificate Name The allocated name for the self-signed certificate for database deployment
Certificate Base64 A base64 encoded version of the certificate.
  • 0... indicates that there might be one or more of these entries in an array.

For more information on using this information, see the Connecting with the RabbitMQ Management plug-in page.