Help with Curl and api call to publish message to a queue

[mundenp]

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RabbitMQ version used

4.1.2

Erlang version used

27.3.x

Operating system (distribution) used

Windows Server

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Steps to reproduce the behavior in question

Hi, I'm trying to publish an XML file to a queue via Curl but can't quite get the command correct. If I publish via the front end on http://MyRabbit:15672/#/queues/MyVhost/MyQueue I simply paste the XML in and hit publish. I think I may be using the wrong api call but this is what I'm trying -

curl -s -u user:password -H "Accept: application/xml" -H "Content-Type:application/xml" -X POST -d @payload.xml http://MyRabbit:15672/api/exchanges/MyVhost/MyQueue/publish

This is the error I get -

{"error":"not_found","reason":"exchange_not_found"}

What's the correct syntax for publishing to a queue via Curl/api as I would via the front end?

Thanks.

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What problem are you trying to solve?

Hi, I'm trying to publish an XML file to a queue via Curl but can't quite get the command correct. If I publish via the front end on http://MyRabbit:15672/#/queues/MyVhost/MyQueue I simply paste the XML in and hit publish. I think I may be using the wrong api call but this is what I'm trying -

curl -s -u user:password -H "Accept: application/xml" -H "Content-Type:application/xml" -X POST -d @payload.xml http://MyRabbit:15672/api/exchanges/MyVhost/MyQueue/publish

This is the error I get -

{"error":"not_found","reason":"exchange_not_found"}

What's the correct syntax for publishing to a queue via Curl/api as I would via the front end?

Thanks.

[michaelklishin]

The key question here is whether MyQueue is an exchange. It's not. So why do you expect RabbitMQ to treat a queue as if it was an exchange?

Another question to ask: in AMQP 0-9-1, do you publish directly to queues? No, you don't, you publish to an exchange, in particular the management UI form uses the virtual hosts's default exchange which makes it look like you were publishing to a queue.

Publishing over the HTTP API is greatly discouraged. If you have to do it, use rabbitmqadmin v2:

# "amq.default" is a way to reference the default exchange that the HTTP API supports
# to avoid confusing empty strings used by AMQP 0-9-1 clients
rabbitmqadmin --vhost "/" publish message --exchange "amq.default"  --routing-key "qq.1" --payload '{"type": "example"}'

If a queue named qq.1 exists. it will be bound to the default exchange with the routing key matching its name: that's the definition of the default exchange, the only reason why it was added to the AMQP 0-9-1 protocol design.

rabbitmqadmin publish message will then output

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "/" publish message --exchange "amq.default"  --routing-key "qq.1" --payload '{"type": "example"}'
# => Message published and routed successfully

if the queue does not exist and the message cannot be routed anywhere, the output will say as much:

rabbitmqadmin --vhost "/" publish message --exchange "amq.default"  --routing-key "a.non-existent.queue" --payload '{"type": "example"}'
# => Message published but NOT routed

The PUT /api/exchanges/{vhost}/{name}/publish endpoint is reasonably well document.

The above commands produce an HTTP API request that looks like so:

POST /api/exchanges/%2F/amq%2Edefault/publish HTTP/1.1
content-type: application/json
authorization: Basic Z3Vlc3Q6Z3Vlc3Q=
content-length: 102
accept: */*
user-agent: rabbitmqadmin-ng 2.7.1
host: localhost:15672

{"payload":"{\"type\": \"example\"}","payload_encoding":"string","properties":{},"routing_key":"qq.1"}

and the response is

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
allow: POST, OPTIONS
cache-control: no-cache
content-length: 15
content-security-policy: script-src 'self' 'unsafe-eval' 'unsafe-inline'; object-src 'self'
content-type: application/json
date: Sun, 03 Aug 2025 20:42:50 GMT
server: Cowboy
vary: accept, accept-encoding, origin

{"routed":true}

Please take it from here.