Messaging#

Once a channel is provisioned and thing is connected to it, it can start to publish messages on the channel. The following sections will provide an example of message publishing for each of the supported protocols.

HTTP#

To publish message over channel, thing should send following request:

curl -s -S -i --cacert docker/ssl/certs/ca.crt -X POST -H "Authorization: Thing <thing_key>" -H "Content-Type: application/senml+json" https://localhost/http/channels/<channel_id>/messages -d '[{"bn":"some-base-name:","bt":1.276020076001e+09, "bu":"A","bver":5, "n":"voltage","u":"V","v":120.1}, {"n":"current","t":-5,"v":1.2}, {"n":"current","t":-4,"v":1.3}]'

Note: If you're going to use senml message format, you should always send messages as an array.

For more information about the HTTP messaging service API, please check out the API documentation.

MQTT#

To send and receive messages over MQTT you could use Mosquitto tools, or Paho if you want to use MQTT over WebSocket.

To publish message over channel, thing should call following command:

mosquitto_pub -u <thing_id> -P <thing_key> -t channels/<channel_id>/messages -h localhost -m '[{"bn":"some-base-name:","bt":1.276020076001e+09, "bu":"A","bver":5, "n":"voltage","u":"V","v":120.1}, {"n":"current","t":-5,"v":1.2}, {"n":"current","t":-4,"v":1.3}]'

To subscribe to channel, thing should call following command:

mosquitto_sub -u <thing_id> -P <thing_key> -t channels/<channel_id>/messages -h localhost

If you want to use standard topic such as channels/<channel_id>/messages with SenML content type (JSON or CBOR), you should use following topic channels/<channel_id>/messages.

If you are using TLS to secure MQTT connection, add --cafile docker/ssl/certs/ca.crt to every command.

CoAP#

CoAP adapter implements CoAP protocol using underlying UDP and according to RFC 7252. To send and receive messages over CoAP, you can use CoAP CLI. To set the add-on, please follow the installation instructions provided here.

#

Examples:

coap-cli get channels/0bb5ba61-a66e-4972-bab6-26f19962678f/messages/subtopic -auth 1e1017e6-dee7-45b4-8a13-00e6afeb66eb -o

coap-cli post channels/0bb5ba61-a66e-4972-bab6-26f19962678f/messages/subtopic -auth 1e1017e6-dee7-45b4-8a13-00e6afeb66eb -d "hello world"

coap-cli post channels/0bb5ba61-a66e-4972-bab6-26f19962678f/messages/subtopic -auth 1e1017e6-dee7-45b4-8a13-00e6afeb66eb -d "hello world" -h 0.0.0.0 -p 1234

To send a message, use POST request. To subscribe, send GET request with Observe option (flag o) set to false. There are two ways to unsubscribe: 1) Send GET request with Observe option set to true. 2) Forget the token and send RST message as a response to CONF message received by the server.

The most of the notifications received from the Adapter are non-confirmable. By RFC 7641:

Server must send a notification in a confirmable message instead of a non-confirmable message at least every 24 hours. This prevents a client that went away or is no longer interested from remaining in the list of observers indefinitely.

CoAP Adapter sends these notifications every 12 hours. To configure this period, please check adapter documentation If the client is no longer interested in receiving notifications, the second scenario described above can be used to unsubscribe.

WS#

Mainflux supports MQTT-over-WS, rather than pure WS protocol. This brings numerous benefits for IoT applications that are derived from the properties of MQTT - like QoS and PUB/SUB features.

There are 2 reccomended Javascript libraries for implementing browser support for Mainflux MQTT-over-WS connectivity:

1. Eclipse Paho JavaScript Client
2. MQTT.js

As WS is an extension of HTTP protocol, Mainflux exposes it on port 80, so it's usage is practically transparent. Additionally, please notice that since same port as for HTTP is used (80), and extension URL /mqtt should be used - i.e. connection URL should be ws://<host_addr>/mqtt.

For quick testing you can use HiveMQ UI tool.

Here is an example of a browser application connecting to Mainflux server and sending and receiving messages over WebSocket using MQTT.js library:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/mqtt/dist/mqtt.min.js"></script>
<script>
    // Initialize a mqtt variable globally
    console.log(mqtt)

    // connection option
    const options = {
        clean: true, // retain session
        connectTimeout: 4000, // Timeout period
        // Authentication information
        clientId: '14d6c682-fb5a-4d28-b670-ee565ab5866c',
        username: '14d6c682-fb5a-4d28-b670-ee565ab5866c',
        password: 'ec82f341-d4b5-4c77-ae05-34877a62428f',
    }

    var channelId = '08676a76-101d-439c-b62e-d4bb3b014337'
    var topic = 'channels/' + channelId + '/messages'

    // Connect string, and specify the connection method by the protocol
    // ws Unencrypted WebSocket connection
    // wss Encrypted WebSocket connection
    const connectUrl = 'ws://localhost/mqtt'
    const client = mqtt.connect(connectUrl, options)

    client.on('reconnect', (error) => {
        console.log('reconnecting:', error)
    })

    client.on('error', (error) => {
        console.log('Connection failed:', error)
    })

    client.on('connect', function () {
        console.log('client connected:' + options.clientId)
        client.subscribe(topic, { qos: 0 })
        client.publish(topic, 'WS connection demo!', { qos: 0, retain: false })
    })

    client.on('message', function (topic, message, packet) {
        console.log('Received Message:= ' + message.toString() + '\nOn topic:= ' + topic)
    })

    client.on('close', function () {
        console.log(options.clientId + ' disconnected')
    })
</script>

N.B. Eclipse Paho lib adds sub-URL /mqtt automaticlly, so procedure for connecting to the server can be something like this:

var loc = { hostname: 'localhost', port: 80 }
// Create a client instance
client = new Paho.MQTT.Client(loc.hostname, Number(loc.port), "clientId")
// Connect the client
client.connect({onSuccess:onConnect});

Subtopics#

In order to use subtopics and give more meaning to your pub/sub channel, you can simply add any suffix to base /channels/<channel_id>/messages topic.

Example subtopic publish/subscribe for bedroom temperature would be channels/<channel_id>/messages/bedroom/temperature.

Subtopics are generic and multilevel. You can use almost any suffix with any depth.

Topics with subtopics are propagated to NATS broker in the following format channels.<channel_id>.<optional_subtopic>.

Our example topic channels/<channel_id>/messages/bedroom/temperature will be translated to appropriate NATS topic channels.<channel_id>.bedroom.temperature.

You can use multilevel subtopics, that have multiple parts. These parts are separated by . or / separators. When you use combination of these two, have in mind that behind the scene, / separator will be replaced with .. Every empty part of subtopic will be removed. What this means is that subtopic a///b is equivalent to a/b. When you want to subscribe, you can use NATS wildcards * and >. Every subtopic part can have * or > as it's value, but if there is any other character beside these wildcards, subtopic will be invalid. What this means is that subtopics such as a.b*c.d will be invalid, while a.b.*.c.d will be valid.

Authorization is done on the channel level, so you only have to have access to the channel in order to have access to its subtopics.

Note: When using MQTT, it's recommended that you use standard MQTT wildcards + and #.

For more information and examples checkout official nats.io documentation

Configure Channel Profile#

When creating or editing a channel we can add a profile field with the corresponding profile structure value. The profile structure consists of the following fields: content_type, write, notify, webhook_id, transformer, notifier

A content_type field defines the payload format of messages in order to transform and store them properly. Available formats are SenML, CBOR, and JSON and they can be defined correspondingly with values application/senml+json, application/senml+cbor and application/json.

Here's an example of SenML-JSON metadata:

{
  "profile": {
    "content_type": "application/senml+json",
    "write": true,
    "notify": false,
    "webhook_id": ""
  }
}

Here's an example of SenML-CBOR metadata:

{
  "profile": {
    "content_type": "application/senml+cbor",
    "write": true,
    "notify": false,
    "webhook_id": ""
  }
}

When content_type is defined as application/json, in the transformer structure you can define the payload field time_field to use as timestamp, the timestamp time_format and the timestamp time_location.

Here's an example of JSON metadata:

{
  "profile": {
    "content_type": "application/json",
    "write": true,
    "notify": false,
    "webhook_id": "",
    "transformer": {
      "value_fields": ["val1", "val2"],
      "time_field": "t",
      "time_format": "unix",
      "time_location": "UTC"
    }
  }
}

A write field determines whether messages should be stored in the database. When write is set to true, messages will be saved in the database. Conversely, if write is set to false, messages will be sent without storing them.

Notifiers#

Notifiers service provides a service for sending notifications. It can be configured to send different types of notifications such as SMS messages or emails.

Similar to the write field in the Channel Profile, the notify field indicates whether notifications should be sent. Notification can be enabled per channel by setting in the Channel Profile metadata the proper notifier field structure with fields protocol (SMTP or SMPP), contacts (an array of contact email or phone number), and subtopics (an array of subtopics for which the notification will be sent).

Supported notifier types are smtp (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and smpp (Short Message Peer-to-Peer).

Here's an example with notifier section:

{
  "profile": {
    "content_type": "application/senml+json",
    "write": false,
    "notify": true,
    "webhook_id": "",
    "notifier": {
      "protocol": "smtp",
      "contacts": ["email1@example.com", "email2@example.com"],
      "subtopics": ["subtopic1", "subtopic2"],
    }
  }
}

Note: If write is set to false, notifications will be sent without storing the message in the database.

Webhooks#

Webhooks service provides forwarding received messages to other platforms. Message forwarding can be enabled by setting the ID of the webhook to the webhook_id field within the Profile Channel.

Here is an example with the value of the webhook_id field:

{
  "profile": {
    "content_type": "application/json",
    "write": false,
    "notify": false,
    "webhook_id": "c9bf9e57-1685-4c89-bafb-ff5af830be8a",
    "transformer": {
      "value_fields": ["field1", "field2"],
    },
  }
}

The value_fields field inside the transformer contains the values based on which the transformer filters incoming payload messages. Filtered messages are forwarded via webhooks.