SQS Queue Should Not Have A High Number of Unprocessed Messages

More Info:

Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) queues should not be holding a high number of unsuccessfully-processed messages due to unresponsive or incapacitated consumers.

Risk Level

Medium

Address

Reliability

Compliance Standards

NIST

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Using Console

Using CLI

In order to remediate this issue, you need to identify the reason behind the high number of unprocessed messages in your SQS queue. The problem could be due to slower processing of messages by the consumer or the producer sending messages at a faster rate than the consumer can handle.Here are the steps to remediate this issue:

Identify the Queue: Use the following AWS CLI command to list all your SQS queues and identify the one with the high number of unprocessed messages:
```
aws sqs list-queues
```
Check the Queue Attributes: Use the following AWS CLI command to check the attributes of the identified queue:
```
aws sqs get-queue-attributes --queue-url <Your-Queue-URL> --attribute-names All
```
Look for the ApproximateNumberOfMessages and ApproximateNumberOfMessagesNotVisible attributes. These will give you an idea of the number of messages waiting to be processed and the number of messages currently being processed.
Identify the Issue: If the number of ApproximateNumberOfMessages is high, it means your consumer is not processing the messages fast enough. If the ApproximateNumberOfMessagesNotVisible is high, it means the messages are not being deleted after being processed.
Increase the Number of Consumers: If the issue is with the consumer not processing the messages fast enough, you may need to increase the number of consumers. This can be done by either increasing the number of instances of your consumer application or by increasing the number of threads in your consumer application that are processing the messages.
Increase the Visibility Timeout: If the issue is with the messages not being deleted after being processed, you may need to increase the visibility timeout. This can be done using the following AWS CLI command:
```
aws sqs set-queue-attributes --queue-url <Your-Queue-URL> --attributes VisibilityTimeout=<New-Timeout-Value>
```
Monitor the Queue: After making these changes, monitor the queue to see if the number of unprocessed messages decreases. If it doesn’t, you may need to further increase the number of consumers or the visibility timeout.

Remember to replace <Your-Queue-URL> and <New-Timeout-Value> with your actual queue URL and desired timeout value.

Using Python

You can use the Boto3 library in Python to interact with AWS services including SQS. Here’s how you can remediate the issue:

Install Boto3: You can install Boto3 using pip. If you haven’t installed it yet, you can do so using the following command:
```
pip install boto3
```
Set up AWS credentials: You need to configure your AWS credentials. You can do this by using the AWS CLI and running aws configure. This will prompt you for your AWS Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, default region name, and default output format.
Import Boto3: In your Python script, you need to import the Boto3 library. You can do this with the following line of code:
```
import boto3
```
Create SQS Client: You need to create an SQS client. You can do this with the following line of code:
```
sqs = boto3.client('sqs')
```
Get the Queue URL: You need to get the URL of the SQS queue. You can do this with the following line of code:
```
queue_url = sqs.get_queue_url(QueueName='YOUR_QUEUE_NAME')['QueueUrl']
```

Process the Messages: Now, you need to process the messages. You can do this with a while loop that continues to run as long as there are messages in the queue. Here is an example:

while True:
    messages = sqs.receive_message(QueueUrl=queue_url, MaxNumberOfMessages=10)
    if 'Messages' in messages: # when the queue is exhausted, the response dict contains no 'Messages' key
        for message in messages['Messages']: # 'Messages' is a list
            # process the messages
            print(message['Body'])
            sqs.delete_message(QueueUrl=queue_url,ReceiptHandle=message['ReceiptHandle'])
    else:
        print('Queue is now empty')
        break

In this example, receive_message is used to get the messages from the queue, and delete_message is used to delete a message from the queue after it has been processed. The MaxNumberOfMessages parameter is set to 10, which is the maximum number of messages that can be retrieved in a single call.Remember that you need to replace 'YOUR_QUEUE_NAME' with the name of your actual SQS queue.This will help in processing and removing the messages from the queue thereby reducing the number of unprocessed messages.Note: The above script assumes that you have appropriate permissions to read and delete messages from the queue. If you do not have these permissions, you will need to update your IAM policy accordingly.

Additional Reading:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/latest/SQSDeveloperGuide/sqs-using-sqs.html

AWS Introduction

AWS Pricing

AWS Threats

AWS Misconfigurations

SQS Queue Should Not Have A High Number of Unprocessed Messages

More Info:

Risk Level

Address

Compliance Standards

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Additional Reading:

AWS Introduction

AWS Pricing

AWS Threats

AWS Misconfigurations

​More Info:

​Risk Level

​Address

​Compliance Standards

​Triage and Remediation

​Remediation

​Additional Reading:

More Info:

Risk Level

Address

Compliance Standards

Triage and Remediation

Remediation

Additional Reading: