Publish Subscribe Message using Mosquitto Client – MQTT.fx

Introduction

Here we will see how to publish subscribe message using Mosquitto client – MQTT.fx. You can use any server side technologies such as Java, Spring, Python etc. to publish and subscribe message into MQTT topic but here we will use MQTT client, which is downloadable for various operating system, to publish or to subscribe message.

You need to make sure that your Mosquitto server is running before you connect to the server using MQTT.fx client tool.

Prerequisites

Make sure you already have Mosquitto server and client installed in your Windows system.

Connecting to MQTT Server

First we need to connect to the Mosquitto server. We will connect to Mosquitto server through Mosquitto client or MQTT.fix.

First open your MQTT.fx and click on Connect button to connect to the MQTT or Mosquitto server.

As I have shown in the below image that we are going to connect to the local MQTT server using MQTT client.

publish subscribe message using mosquitto client - mqtt.fx

Once you click on the Connect button and if connection gets established successfully, you will see that all disabled buttons text field, text area will be enabled.

Publishing Message to a Topic

Now we will see how to publish a message to a topic.

By default a topic with name home/garden/fountain exists in the MQTT.fx. You may use the existing one or you can create your own topic.

Let’s create a topic called roytuts/topic/event. To create a topic simply delete the default topic from the input field and write your own topic.

We will also create a sample message to publish into the topic. The sample message is shown in the text area.

Clicking on the Publish button will publish the message to the topic roytuts/topic/event.

You can make your message retained by clicking on Retained button.

publish subscribe message using mosquitto client - mqtt.fx

Subscribing to Topic

Now we will see how to subscribe to topic roytuts/topic/event.

Click on Subscribe button, then click on Scan button to scan topic(s). You will see your topic is listed as shown in the below image:

publish subscribe message using mosquitto client - mqtt.fx

Now click on the highlighted topic and click on Subscribe. Alternatively you can write your topic name into the input field on the left side of the Subscribe button and subscribe.

publish subscribe message using mosquitto client - mqtt.fx

Once you subscribe to the topic this topic will be available to the list on left side of the Subscribe button.

As soon as you click on the Subscribe button your message will be appeared on the console as shown in the below image:

publish subscribe message using mosquitto client - mqtt.fx

QoS – Quality of Service

You will find QoS (0, 1, 2) in the above image. The QoS means Quality of Service as written in the document given below:

QoS0, At most once: The message is delivered at most once, or it may not be delivered at all. Its delivery across the network is not acknowledged. The message is not stored. The message could be lost if the client is disconnected, or if the server fails. QoS0 is the fastest mode of transfer. It is sometimes called “fire and forget”.

The MQTT protocol does not require servers to forward publications at QoS0 to a client. If the client is disconnected at the time the server receives the publication, the publication might be discarded, depending on the server implementation.

QoS1, At least once: The message is always delivered at least once. It might be delivered multiple times if there is a failure before an acknowledgment is received by the sender. The message must be stored locally at the sender, until the sender receives confirmation that the message has been published by the receiver. The message is stored in case the message must be sent again.

QoS2, Exactly once: The message is always delivered exactly once. The message must be stored locally at the sender, until the sender receives confirmation that the message has been published by the receiver. The message is stored in case the message must be sent again. QoS2 is the safest, but slowest mode of transfer. A more sophisticated handshaking and acknowledgement sequence is used than for QoS1 to ensure no duplication of messages occurs.

That’s all. Hope you understand how to publish subscribe message using mqtt or mosquitto client – mqtt.fx.

Thanks for reading.

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