Technical appendix - MQTT¶
The function driverstomqtt connects drivers to MQTT.
The functions mqtttoredis and mqtttoport are ‘client functions’ -in that they connect from MQTT to clients.
driverstomqtt takes data from drivers, and publishes it with topic “from_indi_topic/driver_mqtt_id”, where driver_mqtt_id is the mqtt_id of the function.
The client function subscribes, either to “from_indi_topic/#” if it has an empty subscribe_list, or it subscribes to each “from_indi_topic/driver_mqtt_id” for every driver_mqtt_id in its subscribe_list.
The “/#” feature is an MQTT wildcard, indicating it will subscribe to all topics starting with “from_indi_topic” - and hence to all drivers.
Therefore the client function receives the data from the drivers and passes it on to the clients.
The actual strings used are set as arguments of the functions, the above strings are illustrative only.
Similarly the client functions take data from the client and publishes it to MQTT with topic “to_indi_topic/client_mqtt_id” where client_mqtt_id is the mqtt_id of the client function.
The driver function driverstomqtt subscribes, either to “to_indi_topic/#” if it has an empty subscribe_list, or it subscribes to each “to_indi_topic/client_mqtt_id” for every client_mqtt_id in its subscribe_list.
Therefore the driverstomqtt function receives the data from the clients and passes it on to the drivers.
Therefore multiple drivers and clients can be connected in different locations, with different or overlapping driver - client connections.
Snooping¶
The INDI protocol features a snooping ability, in which drivers can monitor data sent by other drivers. This works where multiple copies of driverstomqtt are running, possibly connected in different locations to remote instruments.
These functions all subscribe to “snoop_control_topic/#” and also to “snoop_data_topic/mqtt_id” where mqtt_id is each function’s own unique mqtt_id.
If a driver wishes to snoop on another it sends a getProperties request - this is a request to snoop other devices, or device properties. The function will publish this request on “snoop_control_topic/mqtt_id” where mqtt_id is the function’s own mqtt_id. As all functions subscribe to the wildcard topic, they will all receive it, and will record the remote mqtt_id, and will know what device and property it is snooping on.
Each function, if connected to a driver that it now knows is of interest to other snooping functions, will, when it receives data from such a connected driver, publish it to topic “snoop_data_topic/remote_mqtt_id” where remote_mqtt_id in this case is the mqtt_id of the remote function (not its own mqtt_id). The remote function, as described above, already subscribes to this, and therefore receives the data it wishes to snoop.