diff --git a/messaging/broker.go b/messaging/broker.go
index 36092598c5..040ac65848 100644
--- a/messaging/broker.go
+++ b/messaging/broker.go
@@ -693,7 +693,7 @@ func (fsm *RaftFSM) Apply(e *raft.LogEntry) error {
 // Topics write their entries to segmented log files which contain a
 // contiguous range of entries.
 type Topic struct {
-	mu    sync.Mutex
+	mu    sync.RWMutex
 	id    uint64 // unique identifier
 	index uint64 // current index
 	path  string // on-disk path
@@ -738,15 +738,15 @@ func (t *Topic) Truncated() bool {
 
 // Index returns the highest replicated index for the topic.
 func (t *Topic) Index() uint64 {
-	t.mu.Lock()
-	defer t.mu.Unlock()
+	t.mu.RLock()
+	defer t.mu.RUnlock()
 	return t.index
 }
 
 // DataURLs returns the data node URLs subscribed to this topic
 func (t *Topic) DataURLs() []url.URL {
-	t.mu.Lock()
-	defer t.mu.Unlock()
+	t.mu.RLock()
+	defer t.mu.RUnlock()
 	var urls []url.URL
 	for u, _ := range t.indexByURL {
 		urls = append(urls, u)
@@ -756,8 +756,8 @@ func (t *Topic) DataURLs() []url.URL {
 
 // IndexForURL returns the highest index replicated for a given data URL.
 func (t *Topic) IndexForURL(u url.URL) uint64 {
-	t.mu.Lock()
-	defer t.mu.Unlock()
+	t.mu.RLock()
+	defer t.mu.RUnlock()
 	return t.indexByURL[u]
 }
 
@@ -770,8 +770,8 @@ func (t *Topic) SetIndexForURL(index uint64, u url.URL) {
 
 // SegmentPath returns the path to a segment starting with a given log index.
 func (t *Topic) SegmentPath(index uint64) string {
-	t.mu.Lock()
-	defer t.mu.Unlock()
+	t.mu.RLock()
+	defer t.mu.RUnlock()
 	return t.segmentPath(index)
 }