Connection to MQTT broker not possible

Hey there,

I´ve node-red running on two windows laptops. My MQTT broker is mosquitto broker.
The broker ist also installed on both laptops.
Now I want to send data from one laptop to the other laptop.

Both laptops are using the same network. (Raspberri pi as router).
MQTT default port 1883 is open.

Now when I want to send data with node red from the one to the other device, I can´t connect to the broker where data should be received.

Laptop1: MQTT in node: set to localhost, port: 1883, Qos = 2;
Laptop2: MQTT out node: set to the IPv4 Adress of Laptop 1, port: 1883, Qos = 2;

I´ve already tested a lot of things like deactivating defender firewall etc.
But I still can´t connect to the broker of each other Laptop.
Its only possible to send and receive data on the same machine (mqtt nodes set to localhost).
A connection to the broker of each other device is not possible.

Thank you for support!

Why did you put a broker on each machine? A single broker can be used by both pc’s

Try this, for both the MQTT-in and MQTT-out nodes use the IP address of pc #2 and see how it goes

Hey, thank you!
I tried it by your instruction. But there is still no connection to the broker possible.
But I can ping each other device without any losses. So it is sure that both laptops have connection to the same network.
Maybe there could be something wrong with mosquitto.conf?
I also can´t access with a ESP32 that should send sensor data to the broker.

Are you saying if you use the actual IP of the laptop1 and set the mqtt nodes to use the broker on Laptop1 - defined with the IP address of Laptop1 - the communications does not work?

Also, are you using authorization in the mosquitto config?

What version of mosquitto do you have installed ?

In your mosquitto.conf file add the lines below because by default the new version 2.0 doesnt allow remote connections by default. Link

allow_anonymous true
listener 1883
1 Like

Yes, that´s exactly what my problem is. I also reinstalled mosquitto broker but still have got the same issue.

I dont use authorization with password etc. I didn´t change the config file. Its all standard.

Can you ping one machine from the other? Both ways?

I am a great believer in using a broker in each machine and then using MQTT bridging to duplicate data across brokers, but that won't work unless it is possible to connect to the remote broker.

I´ve installed the latest version of mosquitto broker.
So I try to allow remote connections as you mentioned.

Is there a special position in the config file where I should add the the two lines?

Thank you!

What version is that? Whether you have the actual latest depends on how you installed it.

Can you copy/paste your mosquitto config file to a reply

also in a CLI enter mosquitto -v to see the version (at least on a Pi that is the command)

1 Like

nope. put them at the top.

but check what version you have first with mosquitto -v

According to mosquitto -v, I use mosquitto version 2.0.3.
Starting in local only mode?

# Config file for mosquitto
#
# See mosquitto.conf(5) for more information.
#
# Default values are shown, uncomment to change.
#
# Use the # character to indicate a comment, but only if it is the
# very first character on the line.

# =================================================================
# General configuration
# =================================================================

# Use per listener security settings.
#
# It is recommended this option be set before any other options.
#
# If this option is set to true, then all authentication and access control
# options are controlled on a per listener basis. The following options are
# affected:
#
# password_file acl_file psk_file auth_plugin auth_opt_* allow_anonymous
# auto_id_prefix allow_zero_length_clientid
#
# Note that if set to true, then a durable client (i.e. with clean session set
# to false) that has disconnected will use the ACL settings defined for the
# listener that it was most recently connected to.
#
# The default behaviour is for this to be set to false, which maintains the
# setting behaviour from previous versions of mosquitto.
#per_listener_settings false


# This option controls whether a client is allowed to connect with a zero
# length client id or not. This option only affects clients using MQTT v3.1.1
# and later. If set to false, clients connecting with a zero length client id
# are disconnected. If set to true, clients will be allocated a client id by
# the broker. This means it is only useful for clients with clean session set
# to true.
#allow_zero_length_clientid true

# If allow_zero_length_clientid is true, this option allows you to set a prefix
# to automatically generated client ids to aid visibility in logs.
# Defaults to 'auto-'
#auto_id_prefix auto-

# This option affects the scenario when a client subscribes to a topic that has
# retained messages. It is possible that the client that published the retained
# message to the topic had access at the time they published, but that access
# has been subsequently removed. If check_retain_source is set to true, the
# default, the source of a retained message will be checked for access rights
# before it is republished. When set to false, no check will be made and the
# retained message will always be published. This affects all listeners.
#check_retain_source true

# QoS 1 and 2 messages will be allowed inflight per client until this limit
# is exceeded.  Defaults to 0. (No maximum)
# See also max_inflight_messages
#max_inflight_bytes 0

# The maximum number of QoS 1 and 2 messages currently inflight per
# client.
# This includes messages that are partway through handshakes and
# those that are being retried. Defaults to 20. Set to 0 for no
# maximum. Setting to 1 will guarantee in-order delivery of QoS 1
# and 2 messages.
#max_inflight_messages 20

# For MQTT v5 clients, it is possible to have the server send a "server
# keepalive" value that will override the keepalive value set by the client.
# This is intended to be used as a mechanism to say that the server will
# disconnect the client earlier than it anticipated, and that the client should
# use the new keepalive value. The max_keepalive option allows you to specify
# that clients may only connect with keepalive less than or equal to this
# value, otherwise they will be sent a server keepalive telling them to use
# max_keepalive. This only applies to MQTT v5 clients. The maximum value
# allowable is 65535. Do not set below 10.
#max_keepalive 65535

# For MQTT v5 clients, it is possible to have the server send a "maximum packet
# size" value that will instruct the client it will not accept MQTT packets
# with size greater than max_packet_size bytes. This applies to the full MQTT
# packet, not just the payload. Setting this option to a positive value will
# set the maximum packet size to that number of bytes. If a client sends a
# packet which is larger than this value, it will be disconnected. This applies
# to all clients regardless of the protocol version they are using, but v3.1.1
# and earlier clients will of course not have received the maximum packet size
# information. Defaults to no limit. Setting below 20 bytes is forbidden
# because it is likely to interfere with ordinary client operation, even with
# very small payloads.
#max_packet_size 0

# QoS 1 and 2 messages above those currently in-flight will be queued per
# client until this limit is exceeded.  Defaults to 0. (No maximum)
# See also max_queued_messages.
# If both max_queued_messages and max_queued_bytes are specified, packets will
# be queued until the first limit is reached.
#max_queued_bytes 0

# Set the maximum QoS supported. Clients publishing at a QoS higher than
# specified here will be disconnected.
#max_qos 2

# The maximum number of QoS 1 and 2 messages to hold in a queue per client
# above those that are currently in-flight.  Defaults to 1000. Set
# to 0 for no maximum (not recommended).
# See also queue_qos0_messages.
# See also max_queued_bytes.
#max_queued_messages 1000
#
# This option sets the maximum number of heap memory bytes that the broker will
# allocate, and hence sets a hard limit on memory use by the broker.  Memory
# requests that exceed this value will be denied. The effect will vary
# depending on what has been denied. If an incoming message is being processed,
# then the message will be dropped and the publishing client will be
# disconnected. If an outgoing message is being sent, then the individual
# message will be dropped and the receiving client will be disconnected.
# Defaults to no limit.
#memory_limit 0

# This option sets the maximum publish payload size that the broker will allow.
# Received messages that exceed this size will not be accepted by the broker.
# The default value is 0, which means that all valid MQTT messages are
# accepted. MQTT imposes a maximum payload size of 268435455 bytes.
#message_size_limit 0

# This option allows persistent clients (those with clean session set to false)
# to be removed if they do not reconnect within a certain time frame.
#
# This is a non-standard option in MQTT V3.1 but allowed in MQTT v3.1.1.
#
# Badly designed clients may set clean session to false whilst using a randomly
# generated client id. This leads to persistent clients that will never
# reconnect. This option allows these clients to be removed.
#
# The expiration period should be an integer followed by one of h d w m y for
# hour, day, week, month and year respectively. For example
#
# persistent_client_expiration 2m
# persistent_client_expiration 14d
# persistent_client_expiration 1y
#
# The default if not set is to never expire persistent clients.
#persistent_client_expiration

# Write process id to a file. Default is a blank string which means
# a pid file shouldn't be written.
# This should be set to /var/run/mosquitto/mosquitto.pid if mosquitto is
# being run automatically on boot with an init script and
# start-stop-daemon or similar.
#pid_file

# Set to true to queue messages with QoS 0 when a persistent client is
# disconnected. These messages are included in the limit imposed by
# max_queued_messages and max_queued_bytes
# Defaults to false.
# This is a non-standard option for the MQTT v3.1 spec but is allowed in
# v3.1.1.
#queue_qos0_messages false

# Set to false to disable retained message support. If a client publishes a
# message with the retain bit set, it will be disconnected if this is set to
# false.
#retain_available true

# Disable Nagle's algorithm on client sockets. This has the effect of reducing
# latency of individual messages at the potential cost of increasing the number
# of packets being sent.
#set_tcp_nodelay false

# Time in seconds between updates of the $SYS tree.
# Set to 0 to disable the publishing of the $SYS tree.
#sys_interval 10

# The MQTT specification requires that the QoS of a message delivered to a
# subscriber is never upgraded to match the QoS of the subscription. Enabling
# this option changes this behaviour. If upgrade_outgoing_qos is set true,
# messages sent to a subscriber will always match the QoS of its subscription.
# This is a non-standard option explicitly disallowed by the spec.
#upgrade_outgoing_qos false

# When run as root, drop privileges to this user and its primary
# group.
# Set to root to stay as root, but this is not recommended.
# If set to "mosquitto", or left unset, and the "mosquitto" user does not exist
# then it will drop privileges to the "nobody" user instead.
# If run as a non-root user, this setting has no effect.
# Note that on Windows this has no effect and so mosquitto should be started by
# the user you wish it to run as.
#user mosquitto

# =================================================================
# Listeners
# =================================================================

# Listen on a port/ip address combination. By using this variable
# multiple times, mosquitto can listen on more than one port. If
# this variable is used and neither bind_address nor port given,
# then the default listener will not be started.
# The port number to listen on must be given. Optionally, an ip
# address or host name may be supplied as a second argument. In
# this case, mosquitto will attempt to bind the listener to that
# address and so restrict access to the associated network and
# interface. By default, mosquitto will listen on all interfaces.
# Note that for a websockets listener it is not possible to bind to a host
# name.
#
# On systems that support Unix Domain Sockets, it is also possible
# to create a # Unix socket rather than opening a TCP socket. In
# this case, the port number should be set to 0 and a unix socket
# path must be provided, e.g.
# listener 0 /tmp/mosquitto.sock
#
# listener port-number [ip address/host name/unix socket path]
#listener

# By default, a listener will attempt to listen on all supported IP protocol
# versions. If you do not have an IPv4 or IPv6 interface you may wish to
# disable support for either of those protocol versions. In particular, note
# that due to the limitations of the websockets library, it will only ever
# attempt to open IPv6 sockets if IPv6 support is compiled in, and so will fail
# if IPv6 is not available.
#
# Set to `ipv4` to force the listener to only use IPv4, or set to `ipv6` to
# force the listener to only use IPv6. If you want support for both IPv4 and
# IPv6, then do not use the socket_domain option.
#
#socket_domain

# Bind the listener to a specific interface. This is similar to
# the [ip address/host name] part of the listener definition, but is useful
# when an interface has multiple addresses or the address may change. It is
# valid to use this with the [ip address/host name] part of the listener
# definition, but take care that the interface you are binding to contains the
# address you are binding to, otherwise you will not be able to connect.
# Only available on Linux and requires elevated privileges.
#
# Example: bind_interface eth0
#bind_interface

# When a listener is using the websockets protocol, it is possible to serve
# http data as well. Set http_dir to a directory which contains the files you
# wish to serve. If this option is not specified, then no normal http
# connections will be possible.
#http_dir

# The maximum number of client connections to allow. This is
# a per listener setting.
# Default is -1, which means unlimited connections.
# Note that other process limits mean that unlimited connections
# are not really possible. Typically the default maximum number of
# connections possible is around 1024.
#max_connections -1

# The listener can be restricted to operating within a topic hierarchy using
# the mount_point option. This is achieved be prefixing the mount_point string
# to all topics for any clients connected to this listener. This prefixing only
# happens internally to the broker; the client will not see the prefix.
#mount_point

# Choose the protocol to use when listening.
# This can be either mqtt or websockets.
# Certificate based TLS may be used with websockets, except that only the
# cafile, certfile, keyfile, ciphers, and ciphers_tls13 options are supported.
#protocol mqtt

# Set use_username_as_clientid to true to replace the clientid that a client
# connected with with its username. This allows authentication to be tied to
# the clientid, which means that it is possible to prevent one client
# disconnecting another by using the same clientid.
# If a client connects with no username it will be disconnected as not
# authorised when this option is set to true.
# Do not use in conjunction with clientid_prefixes.
# See also use_identity_as_username.
#use_username_as_clientid

# Change the websockets headers size. This is a global option, it is not
# possible to set per listener. This option sets the size of the buffer used in
# the libwebsockets library when reading HTTP headers. If you are passing large
# header data such as cookies then you may need to increase this value. If left
# unset, or set to 0, then the default of 1024 bytes will be used.
#websockets_headers_size

# -----------------------------------------------------------------
# Certificate based SSL/TLS support
# -----------------------------------------------------------------
# The following options can be used to enable certificate based SSL/TLS support
# for this listener. Note that the recommended port for MQTT over TLS is 8883,
# but this must be set manually.
#
# See also the mosquitto-tls man page and the "Pre-shared-key based SSL/TLS
# support" section. Only one of certificate or PSK encryption support can be
# enabled for any listener.

# Both of certfile and keyfile must be defined to enable certificate based
# TLS encryption.

# Path to the PEM encoded server certificate.
#certfile

# Path to the PEM encoded keyfile.
#keyfile

# If you wish to control which encryption ciphers are used, use the ciphers
# option. The list of available ciphers can be optained using the "openssl
# ciphers" command and should be provided in the same format as the output of
# that command. This applies to TLS 1.2 and earlier versions only. Use
# ciphers_tls1.3 for TLS v1.3.
#ciphers

# Choose which TLS v1.3 ciphersuites are used for this listener.
# Defaults to "TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256:TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256"
#ciphers_tls1.3

# If you have require_certificate set to true, you can create a certificate
# revocation list file to revoke access to particular client certificates. If
# you have done this, use crlfile to point to the PEM encoded revocation file.
#crlfile

# To allow the use of ephemeral DH key exchange, which provides forward
# security, the listener must load DH parameters. This can be specified with
# the dhparamfile option. The dhparamfile can be generated with the command
# e.g. "openssl dhparam -out dhparam.pem 2048"
#dhparamfile

# By default an TLS enabled listener will operate in a similar fashion to a
# https enabled web server, in that the server has a certificate signed by a CA
# and the client will verify that it is a trusted certificate. The overall aim
# is encryption of the network traffic. By setting require_certificate to true,
# the client must provide a valid certificate in order for the network
# connection to proceed. This allows access to the broker to be controlled
# outside of the mechanisms provided by MQTT.
#require_certificate false

# cafile and capath define methods of accessing the PEM encoded
# Certificate Authority certificates that will be considered trusted when
# checking incoming client certificates.
# cafile defines the path to a file containing the CA certificates.
# capath defines a directory that will be searched for files
# containing the CA certificates. For capath to work correctly, the
# certificate files must have ".crt" as the file ending and you must run
# "openssl rehash <path to capath>" each time you add/remove a certificate.
#cafile
#capath


# If require_certificate is true, you may set use_identity_as_username to true
# to use the CN value from the client certificate as a username. If this is
# true, the password_file option will not be used for this listener.
#use_identity_as_username false

# -----------------------------------------------------------------
# Pre-shared-key based SSL/TLS support
# -----------------------------------------------------------------
# The following options can be used to enable PSK based SSL/TLS support for
# this listener. Note that the recommended port for MQTT over TLS is 8883, but
# this must be set manually.
#
# See also the mosquitto-tls man page and the "Certificate based SSL/TLS
# support" section. Only one of certificate or PSK encryption support can be
# enabled for any listener.

# The psk_hint option enables pre-shared-key support for this listener and also
# acts as an identifier for this listener. The hint is sent to clients and may
# be used locally to aid authentication. The hint is a free form string that
# doesn't have much meaning in itself, so feel free to be creative.
# If this option is provided, see psk_file to define the pre-shared keys to be
# used or create a security plugin to handle them.
#psk_hint

# When using PSK, the encryption ciphers used will be chosen from the list of
# available PSK ciphers. If you want to control which ciphers are available,
# use the "ciphers" option.  The list of available ciphers can be optained
# using the "openssl ciphers" command and should be provided in the same format
# as the output of that command.
#ciphers

# Set use_identity_as_username to have the psk identity sent by the client used
# as its username. Authentication will be carried out using the PSK rather than
# the MQTT username/password and so password_file will not be used for this
# listener.
#use_identity_as_username false


# =================================================================
# Persistence
# =================================================================

# If persistence is enabled, save the in-memory database to disk
# every autosave_interval seconds. If set to 0, the persistence
# database will only be written when mosquitto exits. See also
# autosave_on_changes.
# Note that writing of the persistence database can be forced by
# sending mosquitto a SIGUSR1 signal.
#autosave_interval 1800

# If true, mosquitto will count the number of subscription changes, retained
# messages received and queued messages and if the total exceeds
# autosave_interval then the in-memory database will be saved to disk.
# If false, mosquitto will save the in-memory database to disk by treating
# autosave_interval as a time in seconds.
#autosave_on_changes false

# Save persistent message data to disk (true/false).
# This saves information about all messages, including
# subscriptions, currently in-flight messages and retained
# messages.
# retained_persistence is a synonym for this option.
#persistence false

# The filename to use for the persistent database, not including
# the path.
#persistence_file mosquitto.db

# Location for persistent database. Must include trailing /
# Default is an empty string (current directory).
# Set to e.g. /var/lib/mosquitto/ if running as a proper service on Linux or
# similar.
#persistence_location


# =================================================================
# Logging
# =================================================================

# Places to log to. Use multiple log_dest lines for multiple
# logging destinations.
# Possible destinations are: stdout stderr syslog topic file dlt
#
# stdout and stderr log to the console on the named output.
#
# syslog uses the userspace syslog facility which usually ends up
# in /var/log/messages or similar.
#
# topic logs to the broker topic '$SYS/broker/log/<severity>',
# where severity is one of D, E, W, N, I, M which are debug, error,
# warning, notice, information and message. Message type severity is used by
# the subscribe/unsubscribe log_types and publishes log messages to
# $SYS/broker/log/M/susbcribe or $SYS/broker/log/M/unsubscribe.
#
# The file destination requires an additional parameter which is the file to be
# logged to, e.g. "log_dest file /var/log/mosquitto.log". The file will be
# closed and reopened when the broker receives a HUP signal. Only a single file
# destination may be configured.
#
# The dlt destination is for the automotive `Diagnostic Log and Trace` tool.
# This requires that Mosquitto has been compiled with DLT support.
#
# Note that if the broker is running as a Windows service it will default to
# "log_dest none" and neither stdout nor stderr logging is available.
# Use "log_dest none" if you wish to disable logging.
#log_dest stderr

# Types of messages to log. Use multiple log_type lines for logging
# multiple types of messages.
# Possible types are: debug, error, warning, notice, information,
# none, subscribe, unsubscribe, websockets, all.
# Note that debug type messages are for decoding the incoming/outgoing
# network packets. They are not logged in "topics".
#log_type error
#log_type warning
#log_type notice
#log_type information


# If set to true, client connection and disconnection messages will be included
# in the log.
#connection_messages true

# If using syslog logging (not on Windows), messages will be logged to the
# "daemon" facility by default. Use the log_facility option to choose which of
# local0 to local7 to log to instead. The option value should be an integer
# value, e.g. "log_facility 5" to use local5.
#log_facility

# If set to true, add a timestamp value to each log message.
#log_timestamp true

# Set the format of the log timestamp. If left unset, this is the number of
# seconds since the Unix epoch.
# This is a free text string which will be passed to the strftime function. To
# get an ISO 8601 datetime, for example:
# log_timestamp_format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S
#log_timestamp_format

# Change the websockets logging level. This is a global option, it is not
# possible to set per listener. This is an integer that is interpreted by
# libwebsockets as a bit mask for its lws_log_levels enum. See the
# libwebsockets documentation for more details. "log_type websockets" must also
# be enabled.
#websockets_log_level 0


# =================================================================
# Security
# =================================================================

# If set, only clients that have a matching prefix on their
# clientid will be allowed to connect to the broker. By default,
# all clients may connect.
# For example, setting "secure-" here would mean a client "secure-
# client" could connect but another with clientid "mqtt" couldn't.
#clientid_prefixes

# Boolean value that determines whether clients that connect
# without providing a username are allowed to connect. If set to
# false then a password file should be created (see the
# password_file option) to control authenticated client access.
#
# Defaults to false, unless there are no listeners defined in the configuration
# file, in which case it is set to true, but connections are only allowed from
# the local machine.
#allow_anonymous false

Thank you!
I`ve got version 2.0.3.

ok .. so you need to make those changes in the config file mentioned above and restart your broker

I`ve got mosquitto broker version 2.0.3 running.
Thank you!

I think they should go at the bottom as otherwise something in the middle may override them.

On Linux one would not put them in that file at all, one would make another config file in /etc/mosquitto/conf.d which will override settings in the master file. So I make a file called /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/mossy.conf which contains just the listener and annonymous settings (plus any other overrides I want). The advantage of this is that an upgrade to mosquitto may override the master config file so destroying the changes made.
How that relates to a Windows installation I don't know.

1 Like

If you look at the bottom line of the config;

#allow_anonymous false

You need that to be enabled, because you are not using authorisation;

allow_anonymous true

In mosquitto v2, it defaults to false unless you tell it otherwise.

But also, take note of Colin's last post above, don't edit that file, create your own config file

I see that @BenSch is using Windows, I don't know how one would do that in Windows.

I understand that it is also recommended for windows users.
But... I'm not a windows user.

Hey,

thank you very much for your solution! I just had to uncomment and change the two lines in the config file and now its working fine.
Now I can also connect with a ESP32 to the broker and send sensor data.
As long as I don´t upgrade mosquitto broker it shouldn´t override the config file.

Best regards
BenSch