mqtt-proxy

Description

The MQTT-Proxy itself sits between the MQTT-Provider & -Consumer and intercepts incoming MQTT-Commands, with the ability to call a REST-API at the API-Gateway. With that, it is for instance possible to validate, that a certain MQTT-Consumer can subscribe to a topic, as the API-Gateway can easily validate the Subscription-Request using a database, another downstream API, whatever.

To get an overview you can also watch our MQTT video series:

The diagram below details more flows between the various components:

API Management Version Compatibilty

This artefact can be used with every API Management Plus version

Prerequisites

• docker 17.06 (and docker-compose)
• MQTT Broker : activemq / rabbitmq / mosquitto / ...
• Policy Engine : Axway API Gateway or custom engine (see [./tests/policy] ) exposing the REST-API to use

Configure your policy engine

The first important step is to tell the MQTT-Proxy, the location of the REST-API to use. This is configured using the Docker Environment-Variable AUTH_URL and when configured every mqtt packet (CONNECT, SUBSCRIBE, PUBLISH in/out) is checked against this endpoint. The REST-API calls exeuted by the MQTT-Proxy are described here: AUTH_API

We are providing some sample REST-APIs for the Axway API Gateway in: ./api-gateway-policies/mqtt-proxy-apigw-policy.xml To use it, just "Import the Configuration Fragment" using Axway API Gateway Policy Studio and deploy this to your API-Gateway.

Command-line / Environment options

The MQTT-Proxy binary comes with a number of command-line options to enable, disable or control certain features. To review all possible command-line options the MQTT-Proxy provides, please execute the following command:

docker run -it --rm davinci1976/mqtt-proxy mqtt-proxy --help

Quickstart

To use the MQTT-Proxy you have multiple ways to start it, either using your own MQTT-Broker or an MQTT-Broker included in this asset and started as a Docker-Container.

Standalone (mqtt-proxy only)

Standalone means, that no MQTT-Broker is started, hence you have to configure the location of your existing running MQTT-Broker. This is a simple example without user-authentication against the MQTT-Broker:

docker run -it --rm -e AUTH_URL=http://api-host:8080/mqtt -e MQTT_BROKER_HOST=my-mqtt-broker -p 1883:1883 davinci1976/mqtt-proxy

An example would be:

docker run -it --rm -e AUTH_URL=http://172.17.0.1:8080/mqtt -e PORT=1884 -e MQTT_BROKER_HOST=172.10.1 -p 1884:1883 davinci1976/mqtt-proxy

another one using some of command line options provided by the mqtt-proxy binary plus user-authn against the MQTT-Broker:

docker run -it --rm -e AUTH_URL=http://172.17.0.1:8080/mqtt -e MQTT_BROKER_HOST=172.10.1 -e MQTT_BROKER_USERNAME=mqttuser -e MQTT_BROKER_PASSWORD=changeme -p 1884:1883 davinci1976/mqtt-proxy mqtt-proxy -mqtt-port 1884 -mqtts-port 1885

The following environment variables including default values are supported (please use --help for all command line options):

PORT 1883
MQTT_BROKER_HOST 0.0.0.0
MQTT_BROKER_PORT 1883
MQTT_BROKER_USERNAME guest
MQTT_BROKER_PASSWORD guest
AUTH_URL ""

Full environment (mqtt-proxy + broker + custom policy engine)

This brings up a complete environment, including the MQTT-Proxy, MQTT-Broker (RabbitMq, Mosquitto, ActiveMQ) and a Node.js based REST-API listening on http://policy:3000/mqtt for testing purposes:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up

This is much more than needed, but you can adjust the docker-compose.yml file according to your needs.

Build standalone binary:

Prerequisites : golang

make install-deps
make

Build docker image

Prerequisites : docker 17.05

docker build -t mqtt-proxy .

-or-

make docker

Test

make docker-test

Changelog

• 0.0.4

  • Add HTTPS and MQTTS server support --mqtts-* --https-*
  • Add HTTPS client support for authz/authn with added cert verification
  • Remove the 2 steps build: use docker 17.05 build capability

• 0.0.3

  • Add websocket support --http-host --http-port
  • rename --mqtt-* variables to --mqtt-broker-*

Limitations/Caveats

• No broker routing : Only one broker per mqtt-proxy instance
  • no configurable routes
• No TLS support for broker
• No additional TLS options supported between the client and mqtt-proxy (algo, ....)
• No HTTP API to publish a MQTT message on a topic /topics/:topic?qos=:qos (like http://docs.aws.amazon.com/iot/latest/developerguide/protocols.html#http)
• No cache for publish/receive/subscribe policy check

Contributing

Please read Contributing.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

Team

Axway Team

License

Apache License 2.0