Azure Service Bus queue state change

Last updated on Feb 5, 2026

Azure Service Bus queue state change modifies the status of Azure Service Bus queues for a specific chaos duration.

It validates the resilience of applications that depend on Azure Service Bus messaging by testing how they handle queue disruptions.
The fault can change queue statuses to disabled, send-disabled, or receive-disabled states.

Use cases

Azure Service Bus queue state change:

Determines the resilience of applications when Service Bus queues become unavailable or have restricted operations.
Validates that message processing systems properly handle queue disruptions and implement appropriate retry mechanisms.
Tests the behavior of distributed systems when message queues are disabled, ensuring graceful degradation.
Verifies monitoring and alerting systems properly detect Service Bus queue state changes.

Prerequisites

Kubernetes >= 1.17
Appropriate Azure access to manage Service Bus queues (read and write permissions on Service Bus namespace and queues).
Azure Service Bus queues should be in an Active state before chaos injection.
Use Azure file-based authentication to connect to Azure using the Azure Go SDK. To generate the auth file, run az ad sp create-for-rbac --sdk-auth > azure.auth Azure CLI command.
Kubernetes secret should contain the auth file created in the previous step in the CHAOS_NAMESPACE. Below is a sample secret file:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: cloud-secret
type: Opaque
stringData:
  azure.auth: |-
    {
      "clientId": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "clientSecret": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "subscriptionId": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "tenantId": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "activeDirectoryEndpointUrl": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "resourceManagerEndpointUrl": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "activeDirectoryGraphResourceId": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "sqlManagementEndpointUrl": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "galleryEndpointUrl": "XXXXXXXXX",
      "managementEndpointUrl": "XXXXXXXXX"
    }

tip

If you change the secret key name from azure.auth to a new name, ensure that you update the AZURE_AUTH_LOCATION environment variable in the chaos experiment with the new name.

Required Azure permissions

The service principal needs the following permissions:

Azure Service Bus Data Owner or Azure Service Bus Data Contributor role on the target namespace
Or custom role with these permissions:
- Microsoft.ServiceBus/namespaces/queues/read
- Microsoft.ServiceBus/namespaces/queues/write

Mandatory tunables

Tunable	Description	Notes
RESOURCE_GROUP	Name of the Azure resource group where the Service Bus namespace exists.	For example, `rg-azure-servicebus`. For more information, go to resource group field in the YAML file.
AZURE_NAMESPACE_NAME	Name of the Azure Service Bus namespace.	For example, `my-servicebus-namespace`. For more information, go to Azure namespace name.
QUEUE_NAMES	Comma-separated list of Service Bus queue names to target.	For example, `queue-1,queue-2,queue-3`. For more information, go to queue names.
ACTION	Target status to set for the queue(s).	Supported values: `disabled`, `senddisabled`, `receivedisabled`. Defaults to `disabled`. For more information, go to action.

Optional tunables

Tunable	Description	Notes
TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION	Duration that you specify, through which chaos is injected into the target resource (in seconds).	Defaults to 30s. For more information, go to duration of the chaos.
CHAOS_INTERVAL	Time interval between successive chaos iterations (in seconds).	Defaults to 30s. For more information, go to chaos interval.
SEQUENCE	Sequence of chaos execution for multiple queues.	Defaults to `parallel`. Also supports `serial` sequence. For more information, go to sequence of chaos execution.
RAMP_TIME	Period to wait before and after injecting chaos (in seconds).	For example, 30s. For more information, go to ramp time.
DEFAULT_HEALTH_CHECK	Determines if you wish to run the default health check which is present inside the fault.	Default: 'true'. Validates queues are in Active state before chaos. For more information, go to default health check.

Change queue state by name

It specifies a comma-separated list of Service Bus queue names subject to state change. Tune it by using the QUEUE_NAMES, AZURE_NAMESPACE_NAME, RESOURCE_GROUP, and ACTION environment variables.

Use the following example to tune it:

# change state of Azure Service Bus queues for a certain chaos duration
apiVersion: litmuschaos.io/v1alpha1
kind: ChaosEngine
metadata:
  name: engine-nginx
spec:
  engineState: "active"
  annotationCheck: "false"
  chaosServiceAccount: litmus-admin
  experiments:
  - name: azure-service-bus-queue-state-change
    spec:
      components:
        env:
        # comma-separated names of the Azure Service Bus queues
        - name: QUEUE_NAMES
          value: 'queue-1,queue-2'
        # name of the Azure Service Bus namespace
        - name: AZURE_NAMESPACE_NAME
          value: 'my-servicebus-namespace'
        # name of the resource group
        - name: RESOURCE_GROUP
          value: 'rg-azure-servicebus'
        # target state for the queues
        - name: ACTION
          value: 'disabled'
        - name: TOTAL_CHAOS_DURATION
          value: '60'

Use cases​

Prerequisites​

Required Azure permissions​

Mandatory tunables​

Optional tunables​

Change queue state by name​