RabbitMQ invalid credentials with valid information for web management interface - docker

Question

While trying to configure and create an admin user for rabbitmq with a JSON file. The users are created. But I am getting the following error while logging in with valid credentials from the web management console.
2022-07-22 08:15:56.342071+00:00 [warning] <0.847.0> HTTP access denied: user 'admin' - invalid credentials
My configurations and docker files are as follows.
rabbitmq.config
[
{rabbit, [
{loopback_users, [admin]}
]},
{rabbitmq_management, [
{load_definitions, "/etc/rabbitmq/definitions.json"}
]}
].
definitions.json
{
"users": [
{
"name": "guest",
"password_hash": "abcd",
"hashing_algorithm": "rabbit_password_hashing_sha256",
"tags": ""
},
{
"name": "admin",
"password_hash": "admin123",
"hashing_algorithm": "rabbit_password_hashing_sha256",
"tags": "administrator"
}
],
"vhosts": [
{
"name": "/"
}
],
"permissions": [
{
"user": "admin",
"vhost": "/",
"configure": ".*",
"write": ".*",
"read": ".*"
}
],
}
FROM rabbitmq:3.9-management
COPY conf/rabbitmq.config /etc/rabbitmq/
COPY conf/definitions.json /etc/rabbitmq/
RUN chown rabbitmq:rabbitmq /etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq.config /etc/rabbitmq/definitions.json
CMD ["rabbitmq-server"]
I also tried to log in with rabbitmqctl
>>rabbitmqctl authenticate_user admin admin123
Authenticating user "admin" ...
Error:
Error: failed to authenticate user "admin"
user 'admin' - invalid credentials
When the password is changed with rabbitmqctl change_password admin admin123 everything seems to work fine.
The only warning in the log on rabbitmq startup is
2022-07-22 08:15:30.218099+00:00 [warning] <0.652.0> Message store "628WB79CIFDYO9LJI6DKMI09L/msg_store_persistent": rebuilding indices from scratch
Could someone please tell me the possible cause and solution? If I've missed out anything, over- or under-emphasized a specific point, please let me know in the comments. Thank you so much in advance for your time.

Answer 1

Your definitions file must contain the HASH of the password, not the password itself. Generally what I do is set a user's password via change_password like you have, then export the current definitions. You'll notice that they contain the hashed password.
You can also generate the hash yourself. See this:
How to generate password_hash for RabbitMQ Management HTTP API
NOTE: the RabbitMQ team monitors the rabbitmq-users mailing list and only sometimes answers questions on StackOverflow.