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MQTT Broker Application

Overview

The MQTT Broker Project leverages the .NET 8.0 framework and MQTTnet, a high-performance .NET library for MQTT-based communication, to facilitate messaging between devices and services. Designed for scalability, it supports a wide range of IoT applications, offering robust messaging capabilities with enhanced security features including authentication and authorization.

Detailed Description

The MQTT Broker Project is a comprehensive .NET 8.0 application designed to facilitate robust and secure MQTT communication between various devices and services in IoT ecosystems. Leveraging the high-performance MQTTnet library, the project provides an efficient, scalable solution for real-time messaging, supporting a wide range of IoT applications from home automation to industrial telemetry.

At its core, the project offers a fully integrated MQTT broker setup, enabling devices to publish and subscribe to messages efficiently. It enhances security through custom authentication and authorization mechanisms, ensuring that only authorized devices and services can interact within the network. Global exception handling is implemented to ensure the system's reliability and resilience, capturing and managing unexpected errors gracefully.

WebSocket support is included, allowing for MQTT communication over web protocols, making it ideal for web-based IoT applications requiring real-time data exchange. The project's architecture is designed with modularity and scalability in mind, facilitating easy expansion and customization to meet specific application needs.

With its focus on security, performance, and scalability, the MQTT Broker Project aims to provide a solid foundation for developers looking to build or integrate MQTT communication capabilities into their .NET-based IoT solutions, ensuring secure, reliable, and efficient messaging across devices and services.

Key Features

  • MQTT Broker Integration: Utilizes MQTTnet for handling MQTT communications.
  • Security: Implements custom authentication and authorization for secure message exchange.
  • Error Handling: Features global exception handling for improved application robustness.
  • WebSocket Support: Offers WebSocket connections for real-time web applications.
  • Modular Design: Ensures a clear separation of concerns for maintainability and scalability.

Prerequisites & Dependencies

Before you begin, ensure you have the following prerequisites installed on your system:

  • Visual Studio 2022, VS Code, or any IDE compatible with .NET 8.0
  • .NET 8.0 SDK

Additionally, this project depends on several NuGet packages. Below is the list of necessary packages with their respective versions and links to their NuGet pages for more information. Ensure these are correctly restored by following the setup instructions provided in the Setup Instructions section.

To install these packages, you can use the .NET CLI command dotnet restore within the project directory after cloning the repository and navigating to the project folder as mentioned in the setup instructions.

Setup Instructions

  1. Clone the Repository 
    git clone <[repository-url](https://github.com/khalidalrifai/MQTT-Broker-Application)>
  2. Navigate to Project Directory 
    cd MQTTBrokerProject
  3. Restore NuGet Packages 
    dotnet restore
  4. Build the Project 
    dotnet build

Running the Application

  • Using .NET CLI 
    dotnet run
  • Using an IDE: Open the project in Visual Studio or your preferred IDE and run using the built-in tools.

Configuration

Modify the appsettings.json file to customize MQTT broker settings, client settings, and logging configurations as per your requirements.

  • MQTT Broker Settings: Configure host, port, and security options.

    "MqttBrokerSettings": {
  "Host": "localhost",
  "Port": 1883,
  "SecurePort": 8883,
  ...
}

  • Logging: Fine-tune logging levels and destinations in the Logging section.

How to Use

Publishing MQTT Messages

Inject IMqttAppService where needed and use the following snippet to publish messages:

await mqttService.PublishAsync("your/topic", "Hello MQTT");

Subscribing to MQTT Topics

Inject IMqttAppService and subscribe to topics as shown below:

await mqttService.SubscribeAsync("your/topic");

Documentation

For more details on MQTTnet and .NET 8.0:

Block Diagram

Block Diagram of MQTT Broker Application

  1. Client Devices/Applications Block:

    • Represents various MQTT clients that interact with the MQTT broker.
    • Sub-components: IoT Devices, Web Applications, Mobile Applications.

  2. MQTT Broker Block (Central Component):

    • The heart of the system that handles message brokering.
    • Sub-components: MQTTnet Broker.

  3. Authentication & Authorization Block:

    • Manages access control and secure communication.
    • Sub-components: Authentication Manager, Authorization Manager.

  4. Database/Storage Block (Extra & Optional):

    • Stores user credentials, access policies, and potentially message logs or session states.
    • Sub-components: User Credentials DB, Policy DB.

  5. WebSockets Block (For Real-Time Web Clients):

    • Enables real-time communication for web-based MQTT clients.
    • Sub-components: WebSocket Interface.

  6. Global Exception Handler Block:

    • Manages and logs exceptions that occur within the broker.
    • Sub-components: Exception Logger.

Functionality

The MQTT Broker Project, built using .NET 8.0 and leveraging the MQTTnet library, is designed to facilitate message brokering for Internet of Things (IoT) applications and services. This detailed explanation breaks down the project's architecture, as illustrated in the block diagram, and describes the functionality and interaction between its components.

Components and Their Functionality:

  1. Clients:
  • Functionality: Clients can be IoT devices, web applications, mobile apps, or any MQTT-compatible device or service that publishes messages to or subscribes to messages from the MQTT Broker.
  • Interaction with MQTT Broker: Clients interact with the broker by establishing a connection, authenticating themselves (if required), and then performing publish/subscribe operations as per MQTT protocol standards.
  1. MQTT Broker:
  • Functionality: The core component that acts as an intermediary to manage, route, and deliver messages between clients based on the topic of the messages. It handles client connections, sessions, and ensures Quality of Service (QoS) levels are met.
  • Interaction with Other Components:
    • Receives connection requests and messages from Clients.
    • Consults the Authentication & Authorization component to authenticate and authorize client actions.
    • Manages WebSocket connections for web-based clients.
    • Forwards exceptions to the Exception Handler for logging and management.
  1. Authentication & Authorization (Auth & Authz):
  • Functionality: Manages the security aspect of the broker, authenticating clients based on credentials or tokens, and authorizing them for specific actions like publishing or subscribing to certain topics. Interaction with Database: Retrieves user credentials and authorization policies from the database to verify client requests.
  • Interaction with MQTT Broker: Respond to authentication and authorization queries from the broker.
  1. Database:
  • Functionality: Stores and manages data related to user credentials, authorization policies, possibly retained messages, and subscription details.
  • Interaction with Authentication & Authorization: Supplies necessary data for the authentication and authorization processes initiated by the Auth & Authz component.
  1. WebSockets:
  • Functionality: Facilitates real-time communication between web clients and the MQTT Broker over WebSocket protocol, enabling MQTT messaging over web technologies.
  • Interaction with MQTT Broker: The broker manages WebSocket connections, allowing for bidirectional messaging with web clients similar to traditional MQTT clients over TCP/IP.
  1. Exception Handler:
  • Functionality: Captures, logs, and manages unhandled exceptions occurring within the broker, ensuring the system's robustness and aiding in troubleshooting.
  • Interaction with MQTT Broker: The broker forwards exceptions to this component for appropriate handling.

Overall Workflow:

  • Clients initiate connections to the MQTT Broker, optionally going through the WebSocket layer if connecting from web applications.
  • The MQTT Broker handles these connections, consulting the Authentication & Authorization component to verify the client's credentials and permissions.
  • Upon successful authentication and authorization, clients can publish messages to topics, which the broker then routes to other subscribed clients, or subscribe to topics to receive messages.
  • Any exceptions arising during these processes are captured by the Exception Handler for logging and analysis.
  • The Database supports the Authentication & Authorization processes by storing and providing necessary data.

Contributing

I welcome contributions of all forms. Feel free to fork the project, make improvements, and submit pull requests. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.

Acknowledgments

  • MQTTnet for providing the MQTT library used in this project.
  • The .NET team for the comprehensive .NET 8.0 framework.

About MQTT

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight, publish-subscribe network protocol that transports messages between devices. It's designed for low-bandwidth, high-latency environments, making it exceptionally well-suited for IoT applications. This project's implementation provides a robust foundation for building MQTT-based applications, with an emphasis on security, scalability, and reliability.