Faas: MQTT Connector

[HakanL]

I'm looking to run OpenFaaS and trigger functions from MQTT topics (they already exist, so the name of the topics has to be completely custom). I've been doing a lot of searches and I can't find much details on any MQTT connectors for OpenFaas. MQTT is displayed in one picture in the docs, but the only relevant information I can find is to set up a connector with Kafka, but that's rather overkill for my use case, I'm looking for a simple setup that I can run on Raspberry Pi.

So my question is, how would I trigger a function from a MQTT topic?

[alexellis]

Hi @HakanL,

The connectors that are available from the project and community are displayed in the docs under "triggers" https://docs.openfaas.com/reference/triggers/

You'll also see a link for how to build an MQTT connector using the OpenFaaS connector-sdk. I would suggest you either use this to build your own or reach out to OpenFaaS Ltd if you'd like to comission the work via [email protected]

Does this answer the question?

Alex

[alexellis]

Derek add label: support

[alexellis]

Derek add label: question

[HakanL]

Yea that's the information I found too, but since I saw MQTT in the picture there I was surprised that nobody had implemented a connector like that before, it seems like it would be a very common use case (I may be wrong on that of course), thinking maybe I overlooked or misunderstood something. I'll look at the Connector SDK, thanks for pointing me in the right direction and I think we can close this question/issue.

[alexellis]

Let me know how you want to proceed.

[alexellis]

I'll close the question since it's been answered now. Feel free to keep commenting or join Slack to chat to the community.

[alexellis]

You may find this interesting which is an MQTT broker written in Python:

https://github.com/alexellis/iot-sensors-mqtt-openfaas/blob/master/mqtt-broker/app.py

[robmarkcole]

@HakanL I'm also interested in an MQTT connector, and have found https://github.com/eclipse/paho.mqtt.rust which is MQTT->Redis

[HakanL]

@robmarkcole I wrote a connector for MQTT, but there's more work needed to update the readme, etc before it's ready to be put up here.

[amirmhp98]

@HakanL waiting for your connector, not ready yet? :(

[alexellis]

If anyone has a pressing business need for this please do get in touch with me so see how we can help.

[HakanL]

@HakanL waiting for your connector, not ready yet? :(

I started building it, but the business need changed so I never finished, sorry :(

[f43i4n]

I have created a simple MQTT connector: f43i4n/faas-mqtt-connector
It currently only has basic MQTT functionality and few configuration options, but it may fulfil your needs or you could create a PR to improve the connector.

[alexellis]

Here's our official MQTT connector, it was required for a commercial project and so it gave a good reason to build it for the community.

https://github.com/openfaas-incubator/mqtt-connector

Connecting drone event data to Postgres / Mapbox:

https://github.com/packet-labs/iot

[alexellis]

@f43i4n is there anything in your connector that you'd like to contribute back? Can our new connector do everything you needed? cc @HakanL @amirmhp98 @robmarkcole

[HakanL]

I'm no longer working on the project that needed this, but based on a quick glance it seems what you've released should work. Thanks!