As I’m testing my Message Queue Telemetry Transport(MQTT) LoRa gateway I’m building a proof of concept(PoC) .Net core console application for each IoT platform I would like to support.

This PoC was to confirm that my device could connect to the Microsoft Azure IoT Hub MQTT API then format topics and payloads correctly.

I had tried with a couple of different MQTT libraries from micro controllers and embedded devices without success. With the benefit of hindsight (plus this article) I think I had the SAS key format wrong.

The Azure IoT Hub MQTT broker requires only a server name (fully resolved CName), device ID and SAS Key.

   class Program
   {
      private static IMqttClient mqttClient = null;
      private static IMqttClientOptions mqttOptions = null;
      private static string server;
      private static string username;
      private static string password;
      private static string clientId;
      private static string topicD2C;
      private static string topicC2D;

      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
         MqttFactory factory = new MqttFactory();
         mqttClient = factory.CreateMqttClient();

         if (args.Length != 3)
         {
            Console.WriteLine("[AzureIoTHubHostName] [deviceID] [SASKey]");
            Console.WriteLine("Press <enter> to exit");
            Console.ReadLine();
            return;
         }

         server = args[0];
         clientId = args[1];
         sasKey= args[2];

         username = $"{server}/{clientId}/api-version=2018-06-30";
         topicD2C = $"devices/{clientId}/messages/events/";
         topicC2D = $"devices/{clientId}/messages/devicebound/#";

         Console.WriteLine($"MQTT Server:{server} Username:{username} ClientID:{clientId}");

         mqttOptions = new MqttClientOptionsBuilder()
            .WithTcpServer(server, 8883)
            .WithCredentials(username, sasKey)
            .WithClientId(clientId)
            .WithTls()
            .Build();

         mqttClient.UseDisconnectedHandler(new MqttClientDisconnectedHandlerDelegate(e => MqttClient_Disconnected(e)));
         mqttClient.UseApplicationMessageReceivedHandler(new MqttApplicationMessageReceivedHandlerDelegate(e => MqttClient_ApplicationMessageReceived(e)));
         mqttClient.ConnectAsync(mqttOptions).Wait();

         mqttClient.SubscribeAsync(topicC2D, MQTTnet.Protocol.MqttQualityOfServiceLevel.AtLeastOnce).GetAwaiter().GetResult();

         while (true)
         {
            JObject payloadJObject = new JObject();

            payloadJObject.Add("OfficeTemperature", "22." + DateTime.UtcNow.Millisecond.ToString());
            payloadJObject.Add("OfficeHumidity", (DateTime.UtcNow.Second + 40).ToString());

            string payload = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(payloadJObject);
            Console.WriteLine($"Topic:{topicD2C} Payload:{payload}");

            var message = new MqttApplicationMessageBuilder()
               .WithTopic(topicD2C)
               .WithPayload(payload)
               .WithAtLeastOnceQoS()
            .Build();

            Console.WriteLine("PublishAsync start");
            mqttClient.PublishAsync(message).Wait();
            Console.WriteLine("PublishAsync finish");

            Thread.Sleep(30100);
         }
      }

      private static void MqttClient_ApplicationMessageReceived(MqttApplicationMessageReceivedEventArgs e)
      {
         Console.WriteLine($"ClientId:{e.ClientId} Topic:{e.ApplicationMessage.Topic} Payload:{e.ApplicationMessage.ConvertPayloadToString()}");
      }

      private static async void MqttClient_Disconnected(MqttClientDisconnectedEventArgs e)
      {
         Debug.WriteLine("Disconnected");
         await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));

         try
         {
            await mqttClient.ConnectAsync(mqttOptions);
         }
         catch (Exception ex)
         {
            Debug.WriteLine("Reconnect failed {0}", ex.Message);
         }
      }
   }

Overall the initial configuration went smoothly after I figured out the required Quality of Service (QoS) settings, and the SAS Key format.

Using the approach described in the Microsoft documentation I manually generated the SAS Key.(In my Netduino samples I have code for generating a SAS Key in my HTTPS Azure IoT Hub Client)

Once I had the configuration correct I could see telemetry from the device and send it messages.

In a future post I will upload data to the Azure IoT Central for display. Then explore using a “module” attached to a device which maybe useful for my field gateway.