Short info

Description

Paho Lua Client library implements client-side subset of the MQTT protocol specification 3.1. An advantage of using Lua is that only a text editor is required for rapid development of simple MQTT client applications on many platforms. Cross compilation issues are avoided.

Initially part of Aiko Platform, this library is now part of Eclipse Paho project.

Features

Feature
MQTT 3.1
MQTT 3.1.1
LWT
SSL/TLS
Automatic Reconnect

Feature
QoS 0
QoS 1
QoS 2
Authentication
Throttling

Usage

Installation

As I am writing easiest way to install Paho Lua Client is from sources using LuaRocks.

1
2
3

$ git clone https://git.eclipse.org/r/paho/org.eclipse.paho.mqtt.lua
$ cd org.eclipse.paho.mqtt.lua/
$ luarocks make rocks/paho-mqtt-0.3.0-1.rockspec

You are all set.

Note: tested on Lua 5.1.

Connect

This section shows the API usage how to connect with the library to a MQTT broker.

1
2
3

local mqtt = require 'paho.mqtt'
local client = mqtt.client.create('broker.mqttdashboard.com')
client:connect('paho-lua-client-sample-identifier')

First step is creating MQTT client, here test.mosquitto.org is used as broker host. As port is not specified, 1183 is used by default. Then you can simply call client:connect() with a client identifier of your choice.

Connect with Username / Password

Authentication is just one additional line.

1
2
3

local client = mqtt.client.create('broker.mqttdashboard.com')
client:auth('user', 'Pa$$w0rd')
client:connect('paho-lua-client-sample-identifier')

Calling client:auth() before client:connect() enables to set username and password.

Publish

Once you are connected it is as simple as:

1

client:publish('topic/sample', 'fancy message')

It publishes a fancy message on topic/sample.

Subscribe

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

local callback = function(topic, payload)
  print(string.format('Hey, %s just received: %s.', topic, payload))
end

-- Connect
local client = mqtt.client.create('broker.mqttdashboard.com', 1883, callback)
client:connect('paho-lua-client-sample-identifier')
client:subscribe({'topic/sample'})

You can subscribe on several topics by providing them to client:subscribe() in a table. Once something arrives on topic, callback defined at connection is called.

Unsubscribe

1

client:unsubscribe({'topic/sample'})

You no longer want to get message from a topic? Put it in a table and give it to client:unsubscribe().

Disconnect

1

client:disconnect()

Quite self-explanatory.

Full Example Application

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37

local mqtt = require 'paho.mqtt'
local socket = require 'socket'

local stop = false
local callback = function(topic, payload)
  print(string.format('Hey, %s just received: %s.', topic, payload))
  if payload == 'stop' then
    stop = true
  end
end

-- Connect
local client = mqtt.client.create('broker.mqttdashboard.com', 1883, callback)
client:connect('paho-lua-client-sample-identifier')

-- Subscribe to topic
local topic = 'topic/sample'
client:subscribe({topic})

-- Wait for publication
math.randomseed(os.time())
while not stop do

  -- Publish something on topic
  local message = math.random(0, 1) == 0 and 'Go on child' or 'stop'
  client:publish(topic, message)

  -- Wait gently
  client:handler()
  socket.sleep(1)

end

-- Cleaning up
client:unsubscribe({topic})
client:disconnect()
client:destroy()

What we are doing here is publishing random strings on topic/sample forever until being told to “stop”.

First we connect to broker.mqttdashboard.com on default port 1883. At connection, we define a callback to handle received messages.

Then we subscribe to topic/sample topic.

Now we publish a string on topic we just subscribed to, client:handler() checks for received messages. When there is one, callback(topic, message) is called to deal with it. We repeat this relentlessly.

Once this message is string “stop”, we stop looping, unsubscribe from topic/sample.

To clean all this, we disconnect from server and destroy our client to free allocated memory.

You can also find this example code at https://github.com/KINFOO/

About Kévin KIN-FOO

Thanks for this guest blog post

Kévin is doing fine things at Sierra Wireless. He said that he loves his software simple.

Follow Kévin on Twitter

Contact Kévin Contact HiveMQ