I have just seen the same thing on a 4.2.4 system. All requests for rabbitmqctl info got a response like:
[root@zen42 rabbitmq]# rabbitmqctl -p /zenoss list_queues
Listing queues ...
Error: unable to connect to node rabbit@zen42: nodedown
DIAGNOSTICS
===========
nodes in question: [rabbit@zen42]
hosts, their running nodes and ports:
- zen42: [{rabbitmqctl5921,51984}]
current node details:
- node name: rabbitmqctl5921@zen42
- home dir: /var/lib/rabbitmq
- cookie hash: WxE1AhHRrbuaQLykIGgbaQ==
Tried stopping rabbit and it said it wasn't running!
[root@zen42 rabbitmq]# /etc/init.d/rabbitmq-server stop
Stopping rabbitmq-server: RabbitMQ is not running
rabbitmq-server.
[root@zen42 rabbitmq]# ps -ef | grep rabbit
rabbitmq 2194 1 0 09:57 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib64/erlang/erts-5.8.5/bin/epmd -daemon
root 6469 4889 1 10:22 pts/0 00:00:00 grep rabbit
Manually killed this rabbitmq process and restarted rabbit with:
service rabbitmq-server start
Starting rabbitmq-server: SUCCESS
rabbitmq-server.
ps -ef shows LOTS more rabbit processes.
rabbitmqctl commands work.
zenhub.log is now clean of messages to do with rabbit.
Everything seems OK.
Strange thing was that zenoss status was reporting all daemons as running (whereas I think you said zenhub and zopectl wouldn't start?).
It looks like rabbit had only half come up and forcing a complete restart got things going again.
I would be very interested to know if this also cures the problem in your environment.
Cheers,
Jane
BTW - I don't have your /etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-env.conf . Is this something you created??