Can not be connected to HiveMQ on remote server

Question

I ran my own MQTT Broker on a remote server by HiveMQ. I setup Nginx and the dashboards works Ok on http://104.251.210.224. But I can't connect to it via a publisher or subscriber. Before I connected to HiveMQ sandbox somehow like this mqtt://broker.hivemq.com:1883 but I can't do this on my own server. What should I do?

HiveMQ Log

2020-02-26 07:29:07,819 INFO  - Extension "Allow All Extension" version 1.0.0 started successfully.
2020-02-26 07:29:09,952 INFO  - 5EQfP: no members discovered after 2001 ms: creating cluster as first member
2020-02-26 07:29:09,989 INFO  - No user for HiveMQ Control Center configured. Starting with default user
2020-02-26 07:29:09,990 INFO  - Starting HiveMQ Control Center on address 127.0.0.1 and port 8080
2020-02-26 07:29:10,217 INFO  - Control Center Audit Logging started.
2020-02-26 07:29:10,217 INFO  - Started HiveMQ Control Center in 227ms
2020-02-26 07:29:10,230 INFO  - Starting TCP listener on address 0.0.0.0 and port 1883
2020-02-26 07:29:10,269 INFO  - Started TCP Listener on address 0.0.0.0 and on port 1883
2020-02-26 07:29:10,269 INFO  - Started HiveMQ in 6383ms

Ngnix

server {
    listen      80;
    client_max_body_size 20M;
    server_name xxxxx.io www.xxxxx.io;
    error_log  /var/log/apache2/domains/xxxxx.io.error.log error;

    location / {
        proxy_pass      http://0.0.0.0:8080;
        location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|svg|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|pdf|ppt|txt|odt|ods|odp|odf|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js|mp3|avi|mpeg|flv|html|htm)$ {
            root           /home/admin/web/mqtt/hivemq-4.3.1/;
            access_log     /var/log/apache2/domains/xxxxx.log combined;
            access_log     /var/log/apache2/domains/xxxxx.bytes bytes;
            expires        max;
            try_files      $uri @fallback;
        }
    }


    location @fallback {
        proxy_pass      http://0.0.0.0:8080;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht    {return 404;}
    location ~ /\.svn/  {return 404;}
    location ~ /\.git/  {return 404;}
    location ~ /\.hg/   {return 404;}
    location ~ /\.bzr/  {return 404;}

    include /home/admin/conf/web/nginx.xxxxxx.io.conf*;
}

Subscriber

const mqtt = require('mqtt')
options = {
  port: 1883,
  host: 'mqtt://104.251.210.224',
  // clientId: "alireza"
}
const client = mqtt.connect('mqtt://104.251.210.224', options)

/**
* The state of the doorphone, defaults to closed
* Possible states : closed, opening, open, closing
*/
// console.log(client)

var state = 'closed'

client.on('connect', () => {
  console.log(client.connected)
  client.subscribe('doorphone/open')
  client.subscribe('doorphone/close')

  // Inform controllers that doorphone is connected
  client.publish('doorphone/connected', 'true')
  sendStateUpdate()
})

client.on('message', (topic, message) => {
    console.log('received message %s %s', topic, message)
    switch (topic) {
        case 'doorphone/open':
          return handleOpenRequest(message)
        case 'doorphone/close':
          return handleCloseRequest(message)
      }
})

function sendStateUpdate () {
    console.log('sending state %s', state)
    client.publish('doorphone/state', state)
}


function handleOpenRequest (message) {
    if (state !== 'open' && state !== 'opening') {
      console.log('opening doorphone door')
      state = 'opening'
      sendStateUpdate()

      // simulate door open after 5 seconds (would be listening to hardware)
      setTimeout(() => {
        state = 'open'
        sendStateUpdate()
      }, 5000)
    }
}


function handleCloseRequest (message) {
    if (state !== 'closed' && state !== 'closing') {
      state = 'closing'
      sendStateUpdate()

      // simulate door closed after 5 seconds (would be listening to hardware)
      setTimeout(() => {
        state = 'closed'
        sendStateUpdate()
      }, 5000)
    }
}



/**
 * Want to notify controller that doorphone is disconnected before shutting down
 */
function handleAppExit (options, err) {
    if (err) {
      console.log(err.stack)
    }

    if (options.cleanup) {
      client.publish('doorphone/connected', 'false')
    }

    if (options.exit) {
      process.exit()
    }
  }

  /**
   * Handle the different ways an application can shutdown
   */
  process.on('exit', handleAppExit.bind(null, {
    cleanup: true
  }))
  process.on('SIGINT', handleAppExit.bind(null, {
    exit: true
  }))
  process.on('uncaughtException', handleAppExit.bind(null, {
    exit: true
  }))

You have checked all the obvious stuff like opening port 1883 in the firewall? — hardillb, Feb 26 '20 at 13:03
@hardillb is it necessary to define 1883 port in Nginx? if so, how? — Alireza Ghaffari, Feb 26 '20 at 13:18
You can, but there is probably no point. What do you think adding it to nginx will gain you? (Remember MQTT is NOT HTTP) — hardillb, Feb 26 '20 at 13:20
Also just because it's available locally doesn't mean that it's not being blocked either by a local firewall or something at your hosting provider (if you have one) — hardillb, Feb 26 '20 at 13:21
@hardillb in this link Michael said that you should config it: https://community.hivemq.com/t/how-to-config-nginx-correctly-to-use-hivemq-broker/171/2 — Alireza Ghaffari, Feb 26 '20 at 13:23
@hardillb how can I check whether a local firewall is blocking this port or not? — Alireza Ghaffari, Feb 26 '20 at 13:24
No idea about the firewall, you've not said what OS you are using. And you've still not answered what you think Nginx will do for you, there is no need for it for most use cases. — hardillb, Feb 26 '20 at 13:29
@hardillb I solved the problem with ufw. 'sudo ufw allow 1883/tcp' — Alireza Ghaffari, Feb 26 '20 at 13:37

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 26 '20 at 19:44

4

The answer can be found in the HiveMQ Community Forum

Nevertheless a short answer for your problem: your proxy configuration missed configuration for the MQTT port (1883), you only configured the dashboard port (8080).

You need a setting that looks something like this:

upstream hivemq {
    server 127.0.0.1:1883;
}

server {
    listen 1883;
    proxy_pass hivemq;
}

edited Feb 26 '20 at 19:44

Alireza Ghaffari

1,004
3
11
24

answered Feb 26 '20 at 15:29

fraschbi

533
3
6

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 26 '20 at 17:24

This solution solved my problem. This is important to allow your port to be known and accessible from the outside and this is possible by doing this via your OS firewall configuration, for mine, ubuntu has a firewall configuration tool named ufw.

$ sudo apt install ufw

$ sudo ufw enable

$ sudo ufw allow 1883/tcp

$ sudo ufw status verbose

Can not be connected to HiveMQ on remote server

2 Answers2