SQS (local emulator)

What is this SQS service?

This container is not Amazon's real SQS, it's a local, API-compatible emulator so you can develop against SQS-shaped code without an AWS account or network access. Laradock builds it from roribio16/alpine-sqs, which bundles ElasticMQ (a Scala-based SQS-compatible server) with a small web management UI, run under supervisord.

Start SQS

docker compose up -d sqs

Stop SQS

docker compose stop sqs

This stops the container without deleting its data. To remove the container (data on disk is untouched, it lives under DATA_PATH_HOST/sqs): docker compose rm -f sqs.

Configuration

All settings live in sqs/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

Variable	Default	What it does
SQS_NODE_HOST_PORT	9324	Host-side port for the SQS-compatible API (host:9324).
SQS_MANAGEMENT_HTTP_HOST_PORT	9325	Host-side port for the web management UI (host:9325).

sqs/compose.yml mounts DATA_PATH_HOST/sqs into the container at /opt/custom; that's where you can drop custom ElasticMQ config (queue definitions) if you need queues pre-created on boot. Check the alpine-sqs README for the exact config format it expects there.

Open the management UI

docker compose up -d sqs

Open http://localhost:9325 (or your custom SQS_MANAGEMENT_HTTP_HOST_PORT) to browse queues and messages.

Connect from Laravel

Point Laravel's SQS queue driver at the container instead of AWS, using any placeholder key/secret (ElasticMQ doesn't validate them):

QUEUE_CONNECTION=sqs
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=local
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=local
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=elasticmq
SQS_PREFIX=http://sqs:9324/queue
SQS_QUEUE=default

Inside Laradock, other containers reach it by container name: sqs:9324. From your host machine, use localhost:9324 (or your custom SQS_NODE_HOST_PORT).

Common issues

• Confusing this for real AWS SQS. It's a local emulator (ElasticMQ under alpine-sqs); it has no relation to your actual AWS account, region, or billing, it's purely for local development.
• Queue not found. ElasticMQ needs queues to exist before you can send to them; either create the queue via the API/SDK first, or pre-define it in a config file mounted at /opt/custom.
• Port already in use on your host. Another local SQS emulator (or another Laradock project) is already bound to one of the default ports. Change SQS_NODE_HOST_PORT or SQS_MANAGEMENT_HTTP_HOST_PORT in .env and restart.
• App can't connect but the container is running. Confirm your app's SQS endpoint/prefix uses host sqs (the container name), not localhost or 127.0.0.1, those only work from your host machine, not from inside another container.

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Need a general-purpose queue instead? See RabbitMQ or Beanstalkd. New to Laradock? Start at Getting Started.