MQTT

Overview

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is an application layer protocol which works on top of the TCP/IP stack. It is a lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport for machine-to-machine communication. For more information about the protocol itself, see http://mqtt.org/.

Zephyr provides an MQTT client library built on top of BSD sockets API. The library can be enabled with CONFIG_MQTT_LIB Kconfig option and is configurable at a per-client basis, with support for MQTT versions 3.1.0 and 3.1.1. The Zephyr MQTT implementation can be used with either plain sockets communicating over TCP, or with secure sockets communicating over TLS. See BSD Sockets for more information about Zephyr sockets.

MQTT clients require an MQTT server to connect to. Such a server, called an MQTT Broker, is responsible for managing client subscriptions and distributing messages published by clients. There are many implementations of MQTT brokers, one of them being Eclipse Mosquitto. See https://mosquitto.org/ for more information about the Eclipse Mosquitto project.

Sample usage

To create an MQTT client, a client context structure and buffers need to be defined:

/* Buffers for MQTT client. */
static uint8_t rx_buffer[256];
static uint8_t tx_buffer[256];

/* MQTT client context */
static struct mqtt_client client_ctx;

Multiple MQTT client instances can be created in the application and managed independently. Additionally, a structure for MQTT Broker address information is needed. This structure must be accessible throughout the lifespan of the MQTT client and can be shared among MQTT clients:

/* MQTT Broker address information. */
static struct sockaddr_storage broker;

An MQTT client library will notify MQTT events to the application through a callback function created to handle respective events:

void mqtt_evt_handler(struct mqtt_client *client,
                      const struct mqtt_evt *evt)
{
   switch (evt->type) {
      /* Handle events here. */
   }
}

For a list of possible events, see API Reference.

The client context structure needs to be initialized and set up before it can be used. An example configuration for TCP transport is shown below:

mqtt_client_init(&client_ctx);

/* MQTT client configuration */
client_ctx.broker = &broker;
client_ctx.evt_cb = mqtt_evt_handler;
client_ctx.client_id.utf8 = (uint8_t *)"zephyr_mqtt_client";
client_ctx.client_id.size = sizeof("zephyr_mqtt_client") - 1;
client_ctx.password = NULL;
client_ctx.user_name = NULL;
client_ctx.protocol_version = MQTT_VERSION_3_1_1;
client_ctx.transport.type = MQTT_TRANSPORT_NON_SECURE;

/* MQTT buffers configuration */
client_ctx.rx_buf = rx_buffer;
client_ctx.rx_buf_size = sizeof(rx_buffer);
client_ctx.tx_buf = tx_buffer;
client_ctx.tx_buf_size = sizeof(tx_buffer);

After the configuration is set up, the MQTT client can connect to the MQTT broker. Call the mqtt_connect function, which will create the appropriate socket, establish a TCP/TLS connection, and send an MQTT CONNECT message. When notified, the application should call the mqtt_input function to process the response received. Note, that mqtt_input is a non-blocking function, therefore the application should use socket poll to wait for the response. If the connection was successful, MQTT_EVT_CONNACK will be notified to the application through the callback function.

rc = mqtt_connect(&client_ctx);
if (rc != 0) {
   return rc;
}

fds[0].fd = client_ctx.transport.tcp.sock;
fds[0].events = ZSOCK_POLLIN;
poll(fds, 1, 5000);

mqtt_input(&client_ctx);

if (!connected) {
   mqtt_abort(&client_ctx);
}

In the above code snippet, the MQTT callback function should set the connected flag upon a successful connection. If the connection fails at the MQTT level or a timeout occurs, the connection will be aborted, and the underlying socket closed.

After the connection is established, an application needs to call mqtt_input and mqtt_live functions periodically to process incoming data and upkeep the connection. If an MQTT message is received, an MQTT callback function will be called and an appropriate event notified.

The connection can be closed by calling the mqtt_disconnect function.

Zephyr provides sample code utilizing the MQTT client API. See MQTT publisher for more information.

Using MQTT with TLS

The Zephyr MQTT library can be used with TLS transport for secure communication by selecting a secure transport type (MQTT_TRANSPORT_SECURE) and some additional configuration information:

client_ctx.transport.type = MQTT_TRANSPORT_SECURE;

struct mqtt_sec_config *tls_config = &client_ctx.transport.tls.config;

tls_config->peer_verify = TLS_PEER_VERIFY_REQUIRED;
tls_config->cipher_list = NULL;
tls_config->sec_tag_list = m_sec_tags;
tls_config->sec_tag_count = ARRAY_SIZE(m_sec_tags);
tls_config->hostname = MQTT_BROKER_HOSTNAME;
tls_config->set_native_tls = true;

In this sample code, the m_sec_tags array holds a list of tags, referencing TLS credentials that the MQTT library should use for authentication. We do not specify cipher_list, to allow the use of all cipher suites available in the system. We set hostname field to broker hostname, which is required for server authentication. Finally, we enforce peer certificate verification by setting the peer_verify field.

Note, that TLS credentials referenced by the m_sec_tags array must be registered in the system first. For more information on how to do that, refer to secure sockets documentation.

Finally, set_native_tls can be optionally set to enable native TLS support instead of offloading TLS operations to the modem.

An example of how to use TLS with MQTT is also present in MQTT publisher sample application.

API Reference

MQTT Client library

Related code samples