Difference in configuration file detection between rabbitmq-server.bat and rabbitmq-service.bat

[lukebakken]

[159157000]

To reproduce:

• Install RabbitMQ server 3.7.X on Windows
• Open the RabbitMQ command prompt and run:

  .\rabbitmq-service.bat remove

• In %AppData%\RabbitMQ, remove all configuration files except advanced.config, which has this content (nothing special, just something simple):

  [
      {rabbit, [{handshake_timeout, 12345}]}
  ].

• Back in the RabbitMQ command prompt run this:

  .\rabbitmq-service.bat install
  .\rabbitmq-service.bat start

• In the RabbitMQ log, notice that both rabbitmq.conf (which isn't there!) and advanced.config are listed as config files.
• Back in the RabbitMQ command prompt run this:

  .\rabbitmq-service.bat stop
  .\rabbitmq-server.bat

• In the RabbitMQ log, notice that no configuration files are used.

The reason is that this code is slightly different than this code.

When you install the Windows service, the presence of rabbitmq.conf is NOT checked and just assumed to be present, meaning that advanced.config will be added to the argument list for erl.exe when erlsrv.exe is started via the Windows Service Manager. When you run from the shell via rabbitmq-server.bat, advanced.config will only be used if the .conf-style file is also present. This caused quite a bit of confusion in a recent support case.

[hairyhum]

As I recall, this was added on purpose, because the service.bat script is executed on install, while the server.bat script is executed on server start. So we can't assume that rabbitmq.conf is there, because installation process does not create it. Considering previous questions from users I start to lean towards no file check solution by default (like with service.bat). This will allow users to create an advanced.config file only if they want and make it a bit more consistent. This also allows us to stop using rabbitmq.config filename, which is too similar to rabbitmq.conf. Of course we will have to handle and log the fact that the file is not there.