4.1.0: CLI tools fail to build with "no such file or directory", "elixir.app"

[bneumeier]

Describe the bug

I am trying to build rabbitmq-server 4.1.0 from source on a Linux machine. I'm using Erlang 27.3.4 and I've tried using Elixir 1.18.4 and 1.17.3.

The broker itself builds and works fine. However, the escript programs under /usr/lib/erlang/lib/rabbitmq-server-4.1.0/escript fail with "escript: exception error: undefined function 'Elixir.RabbitMQCtl':main/1".

When I unzip the archives, I find that they contain basically the entirety of the /usr/lib directory, but do not contain what they're expected to. Looking at the compile log, I see a number of failures that I think are responsible for the problem but am not proficient enough with Erlang to diagnose. The first sample is:

make[4]: Entering directory '/usr/src/rabbitmq-server/rabbitmq-server-4.1.0/deps/csv'
 DEPEND csv.d
Error! Failed to eval:  {ok, _} = application:ensure_all_started(elixir),       {ok, _} = application:ensure_all_started(mix),  ModCode = list_to_atom("Elixir.Code"),  ModCode:put_compiler_option(ignore_module_conflict, true),    ModComp = list_to_atom("Elixir.Kernel.ParallelCompiler"),       ModMixProject = list_to_atom("Elixir.Mix.Project"),     erlang:group_leader(whereis(standard_error), self()), ModMixProject:in_project(csv, ".", [], fun(_MixFile) ->         case ModComp:compile_to_path([<<"lib/csv.ex">>,<<"lib/csv/decoding/decoder.ex">>,<<"lib/csv/decoding/parser.ex">>,<<"lib/csv/defaults.ex">>,<<"lib/csv/encoding/encode.ex">>,<<"lib/csv/encoding/encoder.ex">>,<<"lib/csv/exceptions.ex">>], <<"ebin/">>) of                  {ok, Modules, _} ->                             lists:foreach(fun(E) -> io:format(user, "~p ", [E]) end, Modules),                            halt(0);                        {error, _ErroredModules, _WarnedModules} ->                             io:format(user, "_ERROR_", []),                               halt(1)         end     end)

Runtime terminating during boot ({{badmatch,{error,{elixir,{"no such file or directory","elixir.app"}}}},[{erl_eval,expr,6,[{file,"erl_eval.erl"},{line,667}]},{erl_eval,exprs,6,[{file,"erl_eval.erl"},{line,271}]},{init,start_it,1,[]},{init,start_em,1,[]},{init,do_boot,3,[]}]})

Crash dump is being written to: erl_crash.dump...done
 EXC    7 files
 APP    csv

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Reproduction steps

1. Build and install erlang 27.3.4
2. Build and install elixir 1.17 or 1.18
3. Build rabbitmq-server 4.1.0 with "make -j1 PREFIX=/usr ELIXIR_BIN=/bin/elixir"
   ...

Expected behavior

escripts have content similar to what is found in rabbitmq-server-generic-unix-4.1.0.tar.xz distribution

Additional context

No response

[lukebakken]

Hello, thanks for using RabbitMQ.

Please note that when a GitHub project uses both Issues and Discussions, it's always best to use Discussions first unless you are 100% certain you have found a reproducible bug and have provided sufficient information to reproduce.

In your case, your reproduction steps are not sufficient. I "build and install" both Erlang and Elixir all of the time and have never had this issue. You must provide exact reproduction steps if you'd like any free assistance:

• "on a Linux machine" - which distro, and which packages installed?
• Where and how did you download source code to build Erlang and Elixir?
• What are the exact commands you ran?

For what it's worth, I use asdf to build and install both Erlang and Elixir.

[bneumeier]

OK, I've reproduced the issue on Ubuntu using docker.

Reproduction steps:

1. docker run --rm -it ubuntu:plucky /bin/bash # all subsequent steps are run at the resulting shell prompt
2. apt update
3. apt install -y wget build-essential libncurses-dev libncurses6 libssl-dev p7zip p7zip-full python3 locales git # select 2 (americas) and 37 (chicago) when prompted for time zone
4. locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
5. export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
6. export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
7. mkdir wip && pushd wip
8. wget https://github.com/erlang/otp/releases/download/OTP-27.3.4/otp_src_27.3.4.tar.gz
9. wget https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/archive/refs/tags/v1.18.4.tar.gz
10. wget https://github.com/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/releases/download/v4.1.0/rabbitmq-server-4.1.0.tar.xz
11. tar -x -f otp_src_27.3.4.tar.gz
12. pushd otp_src_27.3.4
13. ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --enable-kernel-poll --enable-pie --enable-jit
14. make
15. make install
16. popd
17. tar -x -f v1.18.4.tar.gz
18. pushd elixir-1.18.4
19. make clean
20. make
21. make PREFIX=/usr install
22. popd
23. tar -x -f rabbitmq-server-4.1.0.tar.xz
24. pushd rabbitmq-server-4.1.0
25. export PROJECT_VERSION=4.1.0
26. make -j1 PREFIX=/usr ELIXIR_BIN=/bin/elixir
27. make PREFIX=/usr install
28. /usr/lib/erlang/lib/rabbitmq_server-4.1.0/sbin/rabbitmqctl

output from this command (or any other sbin wrapper script) is:

escript: exception error: undefined function 'Elixir.RabbitMQCtl':main/1
in function escript:run/2 (escript.erl, line 904)
in call from escript:start/1 (escript.erl, line 418)
in call from init:start_it/1
in call from init:start_em/1
in call from init:do_boot/3

[bneumeier]

FWIW, same process worked fine with Erlang 27.1.2, Elixir 1.17.3, RabbitMQ 4.0.3.

[lukebakken]

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to detail exactly how you are building RabbitMQ.

I have never used nor seen the use of make PREFIX=/usr install to build and install RabbitMQ. As far as I know, make install is not supported (no matter if it used to work in the past).

Please use one of the supported packaging options:

https://www.rabbitmq.com/docs/build-server

In your case, make package-generic-unix.

@michaelklishin may have more to add here, and, perhaps @lhoguin since he's the author of erlang.mk.

[bneumeier]

Luke, thank you for your response!

I would like to point out that the issue I am having occurs during the build stage and not during the installation. The build process fails to compile elixir programs correctly, and then it appears to use p7zip to package up the entire /usr/lib directory in an escript archive file. The fact that there is an install target that can be used to copy the invalid escript files to /usr/lib/erlang/lib/rabbitmq-server-4.1.0/escript is kind of irrelevant.

But perhaps Michael's separate comment will help.

[lukebakken]

Aside from the strange installation directory, running rabbitmqctl help after building/installing works fine on my machine (Arch Linux, Elixir and Erlang installed via asdf).

Here is a transcript: make-transcript.txt

It's not in the transcript, but this is the command I used to install:

make PROJECT_VERSION=4.1.0 PREFIX="$HOME/opt/rmq" install 2>&1 | tee -a ~/make-transcript.txt

I started RabbitMQ from the install dir under ~/opt/rmq, and this is the output of rabbitmqctl status:

rabbitmqctl status output

lbakken@SEA-3LG5HVJUWJK ~
$ cd opt/rmq/lib/erlang/lib/rabbitmq_server-4.1.0/

lbakken@SEA-3LG5HVJUWJK ~/opt/rmq/lib/erlang/lib/rabbitmq_server-4.1.0
$ ./sbin/rabbitmqctl status
Status of node rabbit@SEA-3LG5HVJUWJK ...
[]
Runtime

OS PID: 35627
OS: Linux
Uptime (seconds): 33
Is under maintenance?: false
RabbitMQ version: 4.1.0
RabbitMQ release series support status: see https://www.rabbitmq.com/release-information
Node name: rabbit@SEA-3LG5HVJUWJK
Erlang configuration: Erlang/OTP 28 [erts-16.0] [source] [64-bit] [smp:12:12] [ds:12:12:10] [async-threads:1] [jit:ns]
Crypto library: OpenSSL 3.5.0 8 Apr 2025
Erlang processes: 320 used, 1048576 limit
Scheduler run queue: 0
Cluster heartbeat timeout (net_ticktime): 60

Plugins

Enabled plugin file: /etc/rabbitmq/enabled_plugins
Enabled plugins:


Data directory

Node data directory: /var/lib/rabbitmq/mnesia/rabbit@SEA-3LG5HVJUWJK
Raft data directory: /var/lib/rabbitmq/mnesia/rabbit@SEA-3LG5HVJUWJK/quorum/rabbit@SEA-3LG5HVJUWJK

Config files


Log file(s)

 * /var/log/rabbitmq/[email protected]
 * <stdout>

Alarms

(none)

Tags

(none)

Memory

Total memory used: 0.1243 gb
Calculation strategy: rss
Memory high watermark setting: 0.6 of available memory, computed to: 9.95 gb

reserved_unallocated: 0.055 gb (44.26 %)
other_system: 0.0217 gb (17.46 %)
code: 0.0204 gb (16.38 %)
other_proc: 0.0153 gb (12.33 %)
allocated_unused: 0.0074 gb (5.91 %)
metrics: 0.0016 gb (1.28 %)
other_ets: 0.0014 gb (1.14 %)
atom: 0.001 gb (0.81 %)
msg_index: 0.0003 gb (0.23 %)
mnesia: 0.0001 gb (0.06 %)
metadata_store: 0.0001 gb (0.05 %)
binary: 0.0001 gb (0.05 %)
plugins: 0.0 gb (0.01 %)
quorum_ets: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
metadata_store_ets: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
quorum_queue_procs: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
quorum_queue_dlx_procs: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
stream_queue_procs: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
stream_queue_replica_reader_procs: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
connection_readers: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
connection_writers: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
connection_channels: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
queue_procs: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
stream_queue_coordinator_procs: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
mgmt_db: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)
connection_other: 0.0 gb (0.0 %)

File Descriptors

Total: 0, limit: 65439

Free Disk Space

Low free disk space watermark: 0.05 gb
Free disk space: 971.9508 gb

Totals

Connection count: 0
Queue count: 0
Virtual host count: 1

Listeners

Interface: [::], port: 25672, protocol: clustering, purpose: inter-node and CLI tool communication
Interface: [::], port: 5672, protocol: amqp, purpose: AMQP 0-9-1 and AMQP 1.0

[michaelklishin]

@bneumeier our release workflows are public and so are the build images they use. They produce the releases you find on https://github.com/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/releases.

In 4.1.0, Elixir code is compiled using erlang.mk. erlang.mk assumes a certain directory structure of the local Elixir installation #13580, and needs p7zip.

We won't encourage or help with custom builds from source. If you choose to build from source, it's your responsibility entirely, and building from source while "not being proficient enough with Erlang to diagnose" is a curious choice.

[bneumeier]

Michael, thank you for your response!

It is always nice when a project team is friendly and welcoming.

I will see if I can follow the same process used by the github actions in the repository you linked here.

Regarding p7zip: if you look at the reproduction steps I posted above, you'll observe that I am in fact installing p7zip; I also notice that p7zip is not mentioned as a requirement on https://www.rabbitmq.com/docs/build-server so perhaps it would make sense to update that page with the correct requirements to build?

Regarding "building from source while 'not being proficient enough with Erlang to diagnose' is a curious choice." -- my practice with free and open-source software is to build everything from source, because that gives me strong confidence that if I ever do need or desire to self-support with an issue, I have the capability to make changes and rebuild the software.

It seems to me that any open-source project that provides specific instructions on how to build from source ought to be at least somewhat interested when those instructions don't work. If I am able to get the build to work again with 4.1, I'll submit a patch to the instructions.

[lukebakken]

it would make sense to update that page with the correct requirements to build?

Please feel free to open a PR - https://github.com/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-website

It seems to me that any open-source project that provides specific instructions on how to build from source ought to be at least somewhat interested when those instructions don't work

RabbitMQ's build-from-source instructions do not list make install as a supported target. I don't know why you have suddenly run into this issue in your environment, but Team RabbitMQ does not have the time or resources to provide further free-of-charge assistance.

I use make run-broker and make start-cluster on a daily basis, which always work. The generic-unix packages that are available for download work, of course, as does the community docker image.

[gomoripeti]

When it was announced that (from 4.1) rabbitmq builds elixir with the native support from erlang.mk there were two things mentioned that changed:

• You must have an Elixir installation that has ../lib relative to what readlink -f which elixir returns. This is the case with many installations and the standard Elixir binary build but won't be the case with asdf installations of Elixir,
• 7z must be in PATH. With Homebrew, the formula you need is p7zip and not 7-zip, the latter does not use 7z for the executable name

We did see problems with the first point when elixir was installed with asdf. Could it be something similar with symlinks and relative paths in your case?

[lukebakken]

We did see problems with the first point when elixir was installed with asdf

I'm using asdf-installed Erlang and Elixir without issue in my test! Just FYI for everyone 😸

[gomoripeti]

sorry, my bad, I just noticed that Michael already mentioned the change in elixir handling, and that asdf support was already fixed in #13580

[bneumeier]

Thank you Péter Gömöri!

In my build, I did not have which available. When I saw the Makefile references setting ELIXIR_BIN using "readlink -f which elixir", I thought it would be reasonable to simply set ELIXIR_BIN to /usr/bin/elixir. Which is wrong! In fact, readlink -f /usr/bin/elixir returns /usr/lib/elixir/bin/elixir, so that is what I would need to set ELIXIR_BIN to. When I do that, everything builds fine.

Your help is very much appreciated.