MQ Commands Cheatsheet - Kafka/RabbitMQ/RocketMQ Reference

All essential MQ commands organized by use case, with 32+ entries you can copy and run directly. Find the right command fast when you need it.

SysOps·32 commands·Last updated 2026-07-21

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Kafka 6

kafka-consumer-groups.sh --bootstrap-server :9092 --list

List all consumer groups

kafka-consumer-groups.sh --describe --group <group>

View a group's lag and partition progress

kafka-topics.sh --describe --topic <topic>

View topic partitions, replicas and leader distribution

kafka-topics.sh --create --topic <t> --partitions 3 --replication-factor 2

Create a topic with given partitions and replication factor

kafka-console-producer.sh --topic <t> --bootstrap-server :9092

Produce messages from the CLI (for debugging)

kafka-console-consumer.sh --topic <t> --from-beginning --group <g>

Consume from the start and join a consumer group

RabbitMQ 6

rabbitmqctl list_queues name messages consumers

View queue backlog and consumer count

rabbitmqctl list_connections name state channels

View connections and channel count (leak check)

rabbitmqctl list_channels pid number

Find which connection holds many channels

rabbitmqctl cluster_status

View cluster nodes and partition state

rabbitmqadmin get queue=<q> count=1 ack=false

Peek at the head message without ack (debugging)

rabbitmqctl list_exchanges name type / list_bindings

View exchanges and bindings

RocketMQ 5

mqadmin consumerProgress -g <group>

View per-queue backlog progress of a consumer group

mqadmin topicList -m

View topic routing and queue distribution

mqadmin clusterList

View broker cluster status and roles

mqadmin brokerConsumeStats -b <addr> -g <group>

View consumption stats per broker

mqadmin queryMsgById -i <msgId>

Query a message by ID to trace losses

Redis Pub/Sub 5

PUBLISH channel "message"

Publish a message to a channel

SUBSCRIBE channel1 channel2

Subscribe to one or more channels

PSUBSCRIBE news.*

Subscribe to channels matching a pattern

PUBSUB CHANNELS *

List currently active channels

PUBSUB NUMSUB channel

View the subscriber count of a channel

General Backlog & Connection Checks 5

kafka-consumer-groups.sh --describe --group <g> --state

Check whether a group is rebalancing

rabbitmqctl node_health_check

Quick node health check (legacy command)

ss -tnp | grep :9092 | wc -l

Count connections to the broker (leak check)

du -sh /var/lib/kafka /var/lib/rabbitmq

Check MQ disk usage (watch water-mark alerts)

journalctl -u kafka --since "10 min ago"

View recent broker logs for OOM or throttling

Performance Testing & Benchmarking 5

kafka-consumer-perf-test.sh --bootstrap-server :9092 --topic <t> --messages 1000

Benchmark consumer throughput

kafka-producer-perf-test.sh --topic <t> --num-records 100000 --throughput -1

Benchmark producer throughput and latency

rabbitmq-perf-test --queue <q> --rate 1000 --producers 5

Official RabbitMQ benchmarking tool

redis-benchmark -h host -t publish,subscribe -n 100000

Redis Pub/Sub performance benchmark

kafka-consumer-groups.sh --describe --group <g> --members --verbose

View consumer-group members and assignments

Tips

For message backlog, first check lag and consumer count to tell slow consumers from too few — don't just purge the queue.
When hunting connection leaks, check both list_connections and the app's connection-pool config; looking at one side alone misleads.
Before restarting a broker, confirm messages are persisted; unflushed messages are lost.
In Kafka perf tests, --throughput -1 means uncapped; combine with --num-records for peak throughput.
Redis Pub/Sub is not persistent; messages during a disconnect are lost. Use Stream for reliable delivery.
When a RabbitMQ queue backs up, check the consumers column first; 0 means consumers aren't registered or have dropped.

Official References

Commands are compiled from the official docs below. Click to verify the latest usage.

RabbitMQ Docs

Maintained by LaoHand

Publicly updated on Jul 21, 2026, continuously proofread against official docs.

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