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RabbitMQ

INFRA · APIS
Velocity5.0

Message broker supporting AMQP, MQTT and STOMP protocols

www.rabbitmq.com ↗

Two parallel trains, and the 'maintenance' label is now hiding real feature work

message-brokerquorum-queueskhepriraftmaintenance-releasesecurity-hardening
◆Current state
RabbitMQ is maintaining 4.2.x and 4.3.x side by side, cutting matching patches into both on the same day, and both trains raised their floor to Erlang/OTP 27. Most of the window is correctness work in the Raft-backed subsystems — quorum queues losing metrics after a restart, leaders committing log entries too optimistically, classic queue index paths accumulating slashes, topic bindings with empty routing keys matching everything. The newest 4.3.5, however, is labelled a maintenance release while carrying encrypted management-UI login tokens, a new authentication logging category, ETag support on the definitions endpoint, and a self-deleting Shovel TTL.
◆Where it's heading
The bug pattern remains the tell: nearly every fix is in quorum queues, Khepri or Raft, which is where RabbitMQ moved its metadata and durability story after 4.3.0 removed Mnesia and partition-handling strategies outright. Layered on top is a steady tightening of the operational perimeter — protocol parsers rejecting malformed input strictly across AMQP 1.0, MQTT 5.0 and STOMP, pre-authentication frame limits on stream connections, HTTP API endpoints validating node membership, and headers that stop disclosing supported methods. Feature work is arriving inside patch releases rather than waiting for a minor.
◆Prediction
Expect the 4.2.x train to slow toward end-of-life while 4.3.x patches keep absorbing both Khepri edge cases and security-surface work. The encrypted login token, currently opt-in behind a shared cluster secret, is the kind of setting that gets promoted to a default once rolling-upgrade friction is behind it.

◆Recent moves

  1. 1d ago

    Encrypted management login tokens, Shovel self-delete TTL

    Billed as a 4.3.x maintenance release, but past the bug-fix head it adds encrypted management-UI login tokens (AES-256-GCM behind a cluster-wide secret), a dedicated authentication log category, conditional ETag requests on GET /api/definitions, and a Shovel that can self-delete after a set duration. Real operator-facing surface arriving in a patch, alongside stricter parsing across AMQP 1.0, MQTT 5.0 and STOMP.

    View source ↗
  2. 26d ago

    Quorum queues stop dropping metrics after node restart

    Fixes quorum queues in clusters that came through the 3.13 to 4.2 to 4.3 upgrade path silently ceasing to emit metrics and take snapshots after a restart. A migration-path bug, exactly the class of issue the Khepri transition keeps surfacing.

    View source ↗
  3. 29d ago

    Erlang 27 now the minimum; Raft commit fix

    Raises the minimum Erlang to 27.0 now that OTP 26 is end-of-life — nodes on older releases will not start. Also fixes Raft leaders committing log entries optimistically, another correctness fix in the consensus layer.

    View source ↗
  4. 29d ago

    Erlang 27 floor lands on the 4.2 line too

    The same Erlang 27 requirement and a classic queue index path fix, cut into the older train on the same day as 4.3.3. The synchronized dual-train releases show 4.2.x is still a supported destination, not an abandoned one.

    View source ↗
  5. 2mo ago

    Feature-flag and credential-storage fixes

    Rare-case failures enabling a binding feature flag, plus correct storage of passwordless users created over the HTTP API. Narrow fixes with no change to how the broker behaves for most operators.

    View source ↗
  6. 2mo ago

    Passwordless HTTP API users stored correctly

    The 4.2 counterpart to the same certificate-auth user storage fix. Paired maintenance, no behavioural change beyond the bug itself.

    View source ↗