'\" t
.\"     Title: mqtt
.\"    Author: [see the "Author" section]
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets vsnapshot <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: 06/09/2021
.\"    Manual: Conventions and miscellaneous
.\"    Source: Mosquitto Project
.\"  Language: English
.\"
.TH "MQTT" "7" "06/09/2021" "Mosquitto Project" "Conventions and miscellaneous"
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.SH "NAME"
mqtt \- MQ Telemetry Transport
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP \w'\fBMQTT\fR\ 'u
\fBMQTT\fR
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
\fBMQTT\fR
is a lightweight publish/subscribe messaging protocol\&. It is useful for use with low power sensors, but is applicable to many scenarios\&.
.PP
This manual describes some of the features of MQTT version 3\&.1\&.1/3\&.1, to assist end users in getting the most out of the protocol\&. For more complete information on MQTT, see
http://mqtt\&.org/\&.
.SH "PUBLISH/SUBSCRIBE"
.PP
The MQTT protocol is based on the principle of publishing messages and subscribing to topics, or "pub/sub"\&. Multiple clients connect to a broker and subscribe to topics that they are interested in\&. Clients also connect to the broker and publish messages to topics\&. Many clients may subscribe to the same topics and do with the information as they please\&. The broker and MQTT act as a simple, common interface for everything to connect to\&. This means that you if you have clients that dump subscribed messages to a database, to Twitter, Cosm or even a simple text file, then it becomes very simple to add new sensors or other data input to a database, Twitter or so on\&.
.SH "TOPICS/SUBSCRIPTIONS"
.PP
Messages in MQTT are published on topics\&. There is no need to configure a topic, publishing on it is enough\&. Topics are treated as a hierarchy, using a slash (/) as a separator\&. This allows sensible arrangement of common themes to be created, much in the same way as a filesystem\&. For example, multiple computers may all publish their hard drive temperature information on the following topic, with their own computer and hard drive name being replaced as appropriate:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
sensors/COMPUTER_NAME/temperature/HARDDRIVE_NAME
.RE
.PP
Clients can receive messages by creating subscriptions\&. A subscription may be to an explicit topic, in which case only messages to that topic will be received, or it may include wildcards\&. Two wildcards are available,
\fB+\fR
or
\fB#\fR\&.
.PP
\fB+\fR
can be used as a wildcard for a single level of hierarchy\&. It could be used with the topic above to get information on all computers and hard drives as follows:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
sensors/+/temperature/+
.RE
.PP
As another example, for a topic of "a/b/c/d", the following example subscriptions will match:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/b/c/d
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
+/b/c/d
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/+/c/d
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/+/+/d
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
+/+/+/+
.RE
.PP
The following subscriptions will not match:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/b/c
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
b/+/c/d
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
+/+/+
.RE
.PP
\fB#\fR
can be used as a wildcard for all remaining levels of hierarchy\&. This means that it must be the final character in a subscription\&. With a topic of "a/b/c/d", the following example subscriptions will match:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/b/c/d
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
#
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/#
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/b/#
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
a/b/c/#
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
+/b/c/#
.RE
.PP
Zero length topic levels are valid, which can lead to some slightly non\-obvious behaviour\&. For example, a topic of "a//topic" would correctly match against a subscription of "a/+/topic"\&. Likewise, zero length topic levels can exist at both the beginning and the end of a topic string, so "/a/topic" would match against a subscription of "+/a/topic", "#" or "/#", and a topic "a/topic/" would match against a subscription of "a/topic/+" or "a/topic/#"\&.
.SH "QUALITY OF SERVICE"
.PP
MQTT defines three levels of Quality of Service (QoS)\&. The QoS defines how hard the broker/client will try to ensure that a message is received\&. Messages may be sent at any QoS level, and clients may attempt to subscribe to topics at any QoS level\&. This means that the client chooses the maximum QoS it will receive\&. For example, if a message is published at QoS 2 and a client is subscribed with QoS 0, the message will be delivered to that client with QoS 0\&. If a second client is also subscribed to the same topic, but with QoS 2, then it will receive the same message but with QoS 2\&. For a second example, if a client is subscribed with QoS 2 and a message is published on QoS 0, the client will receive it on QoS 0\&.
.PP
Higher levels of QoS are more reliable, but involve higher latency and have higher bandwidth requirements\&.
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
0: The broker/client will deliver the message once, with no confirmation\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
1: The broker/client will deliver the message at least once, with confirmation required\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04'\(bu\h'+03'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP \(bu 2.3
.\}
2: The broker/client will deliver the message exactly once by using a four step handshake\&.
.RE
.SH "RETAINED MESSAGES"
.PP
All messages may be set to be retained\&. This means that the broker will keep the message even after sending it to all current subscribers\&. If a new subscription is made that matches the topic of the retained message, then the message will be sent to the client\&. This is useful as a "last known good" mechanism\&. If a topic is only updated infrequently, then without a retained message, a newly subscribed client may have to wait a long time to receive an update\&. With a retained message, the client will receive an instant update\&.
.SH "CLEAN SESSION / DURABLE CONNECTIONS"
.PP
On connection, a client sets the "clean session" flag, which is sometimes also known as the "clean start" flag\&. If clean session is set to false, then the connection is treated as durable\&. This means that when the client disconnects, any subscriptions it has will remain and any subsequent QoS 1 or 2 messages will be stored until it connects again in the future\&. If clean session is true, then all subscriptions will be removed for the client when it disconnects\&.
.SH "WILLS"
.PP
When a client connects to a broker, it may inform the broker that it has a will\&. This is a message that it wishes the broker to send when the client disconnects unexpectedly\&. The will message has a topic, QoS and retain status just the same as any other message\&.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
\fBmosquitto\fR(8), \fBmosquitto_pub\fR(1), \fBmosquitto_sub\fR(1)
.SH "AUTHOR"
.PP
Roger Light
<roger@atchoo\&.org>