MQTT broker

It is only possible to connect KPN Things to your MQTT broker using an encrypted connection!

Connect an MQTT broker

The following parameters are available to connect an MQTT broker:

Parameter		Description	Example value
name	*	The name of the destination	My Server
description		Description of the destination	Endpoint of my server
host	*	The host name of the MQTT broker	test.mosquitto.org
port	*	The port on which the MQTT broker allows encrypted connections	8883
username	*†	The username for KPN Things to connect to the broker
password	*†	The password for KPN Things to connect to the broker
applicationId	*	MQTT Client ID for KPN Things to connect to the broker	kpnthings
topic	*	The topic structure describing how KPN Things should publish data. There are several placeholders available: %c Your Client UUID %a MQTT Client ID %d Device UUID %n SenML base name %p Plug UUID %m Message request ID	things/%p/%d/%n
qosLevel	*	The MQTT Quality of Service desired for the connection to your broker. Options: AT_MOST_ONCE AT_LEAST_ONCE EXACTLY_ONCE	AT_LEAST_ONCE
messageTimeout	*	Timeout for sending a message and handling QoS in milliseconds	10000
retainMessage	*	Whether messages send to the broker should be retained messages.	false

*) required value †) secret value, can only be written

What does the connection do?

• Open an encrypted client connection to your MQTT broker.

• Publish all forwarded IoT data in SenML JSON format on topics following the specified topic template.

Trusted TLS/SSL certificates

We do not support self-signed certificates. Your TLS/SSL certificate should be signed by a root certificate authority (CA) that is trusted by the default Java trust store. You can use the SSL Server Test from Qualys to check if your certificate is trusted by the Java trust store:

The result of the SSL Server Test indicating the certificate is trusted by Java.

Your server should preferably use TLSv1.2 or higher, but at least TLSv1.1. Older protocols are not supported because they are not considered safe.

Learn about MQTT

Are you new to MQTT, but still interested in using it? HiveMQ has published some very nice articles about MQTT essentials:

MQTT Essentials - All Core Concepts explained

Test with a demo broker

You can find a publicly available Mosquitto MQTT server/broker on https://test.mosquitto.org. This allows you to try to connect KPN Things to an MQTT broker. Do not use this public MQTT broker for production!

test.mosquitto.org