14
votes

The documentation for AWS SNS and SQS have sections about message attributes. But there is no explanation how to have SQS message attributes when that queue is subscribed to a SNS topic.

Is there a way to configure AWS SNS to add particular message attributes to the SQS messages send via the subscription?

3
When an Amazon SQS queue is subscribed to an Amazon SNS topic, the SQS message will contain the message sent to (and forwarded from) SNS. What particular of attributes did you want?John Rotenstein
"SQS Message Attributes" is a thing. Separate from the message body.Evgeny
That is correct. However, when SNS sends a message to SQS, it populates the SQS message body. What attributes from SNS were you hoping to have populated as an SQS message attribute?John Rotenstein
I want to have certain pre-defined attributes on the SQS messages generated from this SNS topic. For example messages on one topic would add an attribute path: foo, another SNS topic sending to the same SQS queue would add an attribute path: bar. According to docs.aws.amazon.com/sns/latest/dg/SNSMessageAttributes.html there seems to be a reference, but nothing else is documented. *Important* To use message attributes with Amazon SQS endpoints, you must set the subscription attribute, Raw Message Delivery, to True.Evgeny

3 Answers

17
votes

While the Using Amazon SNS Message Attributes documentation sending Amazon SNS message attributes to Amazon SQS, it appears that the attributes are sent in the body of the message rather than being attached as message attributes on the resulting Amazon SQS messages.

For example, I did the following:

  • Created an Amazon SNS topic
  • Created an Amazon SQS queue and subscribed it to the SNS topic
  • Published a message to SNS

I published via the AWS Command-Line Interface (CLI):

aws sns publish --topic-arn arn:aws:sns:ap-southeast-2:123456789012:foo --message msg --subject subj --message-attributes '{"somename" : { "DataType":"String", "StringValue":"somevalue"}}'

(I got syntax help from map datatype in aws cli)

The resulting message in SQS showed the attributes as part of the message:

{
  "Type" : "Notification",
  "MessageId" : "53e3adad-723a-5eae-a7b7-fc0468ec2d37",
  "TopicArn" : "arn:aws:sns:ap-southeast-2:123456789012:foo",
  "Subject" : "subj",
  "Message" : "msg",
  "Timestamp" : "2017-05-29T12:48:22.186Z",
  ...
  "MessageAttributes" : {
    "somename" : {"Type":"String","Value":"somevalue"}
  }
}

It would be much nicer if these attributes were attached to the SQS message as official SQS attributes. Alas, it seems this is not the case.

28
votes

From aws documentation:

To use message attributes with Amazon SQS endpoints, you must set the subscription attribute, Raw Message Delivery, to True. For more information about raw message delivery, see Appendix: Large Payload and Raw Message Delivery. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sns/latest/dg/SNSMessageAttributes.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sns/latest/dg/large-payload-raw-message.html

Added an example from real-life project. Hopefully it helps to clarify things. The message published to the sns topic is following:

aws sns publish --topic-arn arn:aws:sns:us-west-2:xxx:pollution-event --message '{"operatorId":3375001,"eventTypeId":1,"eventLevelId":1,"validFrom":"2018-03-10T09:00:00Z","validTo":"2018-03-11T09:00:00Z"}'  --message-attributes '{"Type" : { "DataType":"String", "StringValue":"Orchestration.Services.Model.Pollution.PollutionMessage"}}'

Enable Raw Delivery is false (default). The message received by sqs contains only content, there are no attributes

{
  "Type": "Notification",
  "MessageId": "78d5bc6f-142c-5060-a75c-ef29b774ec66",
  "TopicArn": "arn:aws:sns:eu-west-2:xxx:pollution-event",
  "Message": "{\"validFrom\": \"2018-03-10T09:00:00Z\",\"validTo\": \"2018-03-11T09:00:00Z\",\"eventLevelId\": 1,\"eventTypeId\": 1,\"operatorId\": 3375001}",
  "Timestamp": "2018-04-17T11:33:44.770Z",
  "SignatureVersion": "1",
  "Signature": "xxx==",
  "SigningCertURL": "https://sns.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/SimpleNotificationService-xxx.pem",
  "UnsubscribeURL": "https://sns.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/?Action=Unsubscribe&SubscriptionArn=arn:aws:sns:eu-west-2:xxx",
  "MessageAttributes": {
    "Type": {
      "Type": "String",
      "Value": "Orchestration.Services.Model.Pollution.PollutionMessage"
    },
    "AWS.SNS.MOBILE.MPNS.Type": {
      "Type": "String",
      "Value": "token"
    },
    "AWS.SNS.MOBILE.MPNS.NotificationClass": {
      "Type": "String",
      "Value": "realtime"
    },
    "AWS.SNS.MOBILE.WNS.Type": {
      "Type": "String",
      "Value": "wns/badge"
    }
  }
}

There are no message attributes, it is contained within the message itself

Enable Raw delivery is true. The message contains the message attributes and proper content Message has an attribute The attribute contains expected value

2
votes

Enabled Raw message delivery type while adding SQS subscription for the topic inside SNS