How to install Raspberry Pi OS (Raspbian)<br>+ Mosquitto MQTT Broker on a RaspBerry Pi

 

This tutorial is useful for setup a local MQTT Broker for testing our ACE-GTW-MQTT and ACE-GTW-4G Gateway. You can also chose a MQTT Broker on Internet or an Android app like MQTT Broker.

Install Raspberry Pi OS Lite

Download “Raspberry Pi OS Lite” on raspberrypi.org
Download, install and launch “BalenaEtcher” on balena.io/etcher
Insert your Micro SD-Card in your PC
Flash the “Raspberry Pi OS Lite” on your SD-Card with Balena Etcher

Opening of SSH access

Open “boot” disk/directory of your SD-Card (Re-insert the SD-Card if you can see “boot”)
Add in “boot” an empty text file and name it “ssh”

Setting up a WiFi connection

Add in “boot” a text file and name it “wpa_supplicant.conf”
Open it and write inside:
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=FR
network={
ssid="SSID"
psk="PASSWORD"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
}
Replace SSID and PASSWORD with your own

With RaspBerry

Eject and insert your SD-Card in your RaspBerry Zero
Power on your RaspBerry Zero and wait its connection to your WiFi
Search your RaspBerry IP address on your network (you can use Angry IP Scanner)
Download, install and launch PuTTY for SSH access
SSH connection to your RaspBerry IP address
Login=pi Password=raspberry
Enter the commands: passwd for changing the password of you RaspBerry

Install Mosquitto Broker

Enter the commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y mosquitto

The MQTT broker service will start automatically after the installation has completed.

Installation status of Mosquitto Broker

Enter the commands: sudo systemctl status mosquitto for checking the Mosquitto MQTT installation : Ensure the package is “Loaded: …” and “Active: …”

Optional: Test locally the Mosquitto Broker

You can also install the mosquitto client if you wish. This can be useful for testing the MQTT broker on the server itself (Raspberry Pi).

• Enter the commands: sudo apt-get install mosquitto-clients and confirm installation
• Open a second command-line interface (CLI) using PuTTY
  • subscribe to a test topic named “mymqtttesttopic” by entering: mosquitto_sub -h localhost -t mymqtttesttopic
    • 
  • Then, publish a message from the other terminal: mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t mymqtttesttopic -m "Sent from my own MQTT Broker"
    • 
  • If the installation is properly working, the subscribe terminal will receive the message:
    • 

Stop, Run and Restart Mosquitto

The MQTT broker service started automatically after the installation was completed, but it is useful to know these command:

Stop the mosquitto service: sudo systemctl stop mosquitto
Start the mosquitto service: sudo systemctl start mosquitto
Restart the mosquitto service: sudo systemctl restart mosquitto

Optional: Change the HostName

If you want to change the RaspBerry hostname:
Enter the commands: sudo nano /etc/hosts
With keyboard, replace “raspberry” text by another one (without special characters)
Ctrl+X + Y + Enter to save the file
Enter the commands: sudo nano /etc/hostname
With keyboard, replace “raspberrypi” text by another one (without special characters)

Reboot Raspberry Pi OS

Enter the commands: “sudo reboot” for reboot !

Secure the Mosquitto Server

Mosquitto reads configuration information from the following location:

/etc/mosquitto/conf.d

Create a default.conf under the directory:

sudo nano /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/default.conf

It will maybe ask you for your password for SSH user

Paste the information below to disable anonymous connections and allow Mosquitto to read valid credentials from the /etc/mosquitto/passwd file:

allow_anonymous false
password_file /etc/mosquitto/passwd
listener 1883

Ctrl+X + Y + Enter to save the file

Add a Password to the MQTT Broker

Replace USER by your username in this commands and execute:

sudo mosquitto_passwd -c /etc/mosquitto/passwd USER

It will ask twice the new password

Restart the mosquitto service to load the new changes:

sudo systemctl restart mosquitto

Connect a MQTT Client

You can use MQTT Explorer as MQTT Client

Host = Raspberr IP addres (Use AngryIP to find the IP address of your Raspberry)
Port = 1883
Username = USER you have chosen in the previous section
Password = PASSWORD that you also chose in the previous section

Note: Lifetime of SD cards

The life of SD cards is limited to between 10,000 and 100,000 writes! And your Raspberry Pi OS Lite and MQTT Server work ONLY on this card!

Don’t neglect the quality of the SD card in your Raspberry Pi!

Example of start-up test:

• Samsung EVO 16 GB Card Class (10): 25 seconds
• Unbranded 8GB Class (4): 2 minutes 35 seconds

It is for these reasons that the use of a classic Raspberry in an industrial / production environment is not recommended.

Note: Cloning your SD card

It is important to have a backup of your SD card. In case of failure, you will be very happy to have it ?