myarete / mqtt-gateway

Realtime messaging server for Farmbot (MQTT broker).

PLEASE READ

You might not need to install this software. This software is used by the FarmBot team and advanced users who run their own FarmBot servers. We highly recommend that you use our publicly hosted server at my.farmbot.io, which eliminte the need for server setup.

How It Works

Farmbot uses MQTT for realtime events. On the device side, this is handled over a TCP connection to the MQTT broker. On the browser, this is performed over a Websocket connection.

Our MQTT Implementation

• Log in to the broker using the same email as on the web app. A JSON Web Token from the API can be used as a password.
• Messages are sent using JSON RPC.

Available MQTT Topics

• bot/{ BOT_UUID }/request: User initiated command objects are sent here.
• bot/{ BOT_UUID }/response: Successfully completed commands are reported on this channel.
• bot/{ BOT_UUID }/notification: Messages that were not initiated by the user are sent here. Eg: logs and statuses.
• bot/{ BOT_UUID }/error: Failed commands are reported to this channel.

Subscribing to bot/{ BOT_UUID }/* via 3rd party MQTT client (Such as MQTT FX) is useful for debugging and monitoring.

Installation

1. git clone THIS_REPO
2. cd THIS_REPO
3. npm install
4. Setup and run the Web API locally. We recommend running it on http://localhost:3000
5. WEB_API_URL=http://localhost:3000 node app/index.js. See note below*.
6. Websocket MQTT is now available via http://localhost:3002. Raw MQTT (TCP connections) are available via mqtt://localhost:1883.

* The assumption is that you are running a Web API instance on localhost:3000. If you are using a different API server, please change WEB_API_URL accordingly.

ENV var reference

The MQTT broker uses ENV vars as the main means of configuration. These must be set properly for the app to work.

• MQTT_WEBSOCKET_PORT: Optional. WebSocket connection port. We recommend using 3002. NOTE If you are using standard MQTT, that is always port 1883. Raise an issue if you need to run MQTT on a different port.
• WEB_API_URL: URL to your FarmBot API. For instance, if you were running the API locally, you would set this value to localhost:3000

Running on Local (for development)

• Start the FarmBot API on your local machine on default port.
• Run npm run dev

Running the Test Suite

npm test

Provisioning a Production Server

See setup_notes.md.