This document describes the configuration options in the Chariot® MQTT Server UI.

The UI can be accessed at the following URL:

http://<server-url>:8080

When installed on Linux, Windows or deployed via Azure Marketplace, the default User login credentials are:

username: admin
password: password

When deployed via AWS Marketplace, the default User login credentials are:

username: admin
password: EC instance ID for example: i-0049ac1e13e558b70

The Chariot MQTT Server Web UI provides multiple configuration pages on the left navigation panel.

• Users
• Roles
• MQTT Credentials
• MQTT Server
• License
• System

Users

The Users page allows for the creating, updating, and deleting of Chariot Users.  A Chariot User may log into the Chariot Web UI and perform different actions based the the Roles assigned to that User.  The main Chariot Users page shows a table of existing Chariot Users.  Users can be added by clicking the "Add User" button, or they can be edited by clicking on the individual User in the table.

Add User

Clicking the "Add User" button will display a form for creating a new Chariot User.

The form contains the following fields:

• Username
  • A unique username for the Chariot User (required).
• Password
  • A secure password for the Chariot User that will be used to log into the Chariot Web UI (required).
• Email
  • An email address associated with the Chariot User (optional).
• First Name
  • A first name associated with the Chariot User (optional).
• Last Name
  • A last name associated with the Chariot User (optional).
• Roles
  • A list of Chariot Roles associated with the Chariot User.

The "Add" button in the bottom right of the form can be clicked to create the User.

Edit User

Clicking on an individual Chariot User in the table will display a form for editing the Chariot User.

The update form contains additional fields that can be used to provide more information about the Chariot User. Additionally, a dropdown list to the right of the Chariot User's username can be clicked to provide options for deleting the user, or changing the Chariot User's password. 

The "Update" button in the bottom right can be clicked to update the Chariot User once all changes have been made. 

Roles

The Roles page allows for the creating, updating, and deleting of Chariot Roles.  A Chariot Role is a collection of permissions that authorized viewing, editing, and/or controlling the Chariot MQTT Server. The main Chariot Roles page shows a table of existing Chariot Roles.  Roles can be added by clicking the "Add Role" button, or they can be edited by clicking on the individual Role in the table.

Add Role

Clicking the "Add Role" button will display a form for creating a new Chariot Role.

The form contains the following fields:

• Name
  • A unique name for the Chariot Role.
• Permissions
  • A list of permissions for the Chariot Role.
  • Permissions have the form <domain>:<action>
    
    • The <domain> represents a service within Chariot that can be interacted with through the Chariot UI.
      Some examples are:
      • user
        • The User Service for managing Chariot UI users
        • See the Chariot UI under the "Users" tab
      • role
        • The Role Service for managing Chariot UI roles
        • See the Chariot UI under the "Roles" tab
      • mqttuser
        • The MQTT User Service for managing MQTT Credentials
        • See the Chariot UI under the "MQTT Credentials" tab
      • system
        • The System Service for configuring Server Name, HTTP, Certificates, and Backup/Restore
        • See the Chariot UI under the "System" tab
      • server
        
        • The MQTT Server Service for configuring and controlling the MQTT server
        • See the Chariot UI under the "MQTT Server" tab
      • license
        
        • The Licensing Service for licensing the Chariot MQTT Server software
        • See the Chariot UI under the "License" tab
    • The <action> represents the scope of this permission for the associated domain.
      The available actions are:
      
      • read
        • The permission to read/view resources, configurations, and/or data
      • create
        • The permission to create new resources and/or configurations
      • update
        • The permission to update resources and/or configurations
      • delete
        • The permission to delete resources and/or configurations
      • action
        • The permission to perform any actions available from a service within Chariot (such as starting/stopping the MQTT server or activating a license)

The "Add" button in the bottom right of the form can be clicked to create the Role.

Edit Role

Clicking on an individual Chariot Role in the table will display a form for editing the Chariot Role.

The "Update" button in the bottom right can be clicked to update the Chariot Role once all changes have been made.

MQTT Credentials

MQTT Credentials are the credentials that clients will use to authenticate when establishing an MQTT connection to the Chariot MQTT Server.  MQTT Credentials also contain the access control lists (ACLs) that control which MQTT topics a client can publish and/or subscribe on. Credentials can be added by clicking the "Add Credential" button, or they can be edited by clicking on the individual Credential in the table.

Add Credential

Clicking the "Add Credential" button will display a form for creating a new MQTT Credential.

The form contains the following fields:

• Username
  • A unique username that an MQTT client will use when connecting.
• Password
  • A secure password that an MQTT client will use when connecting.
• Publish Topics
  • A list of MQTT topic filters that the client is allowed to publish on (wildcards may be used).
• Subscribe Topics
  
  • A list of MQTT topic filters that the client is allowed to subscribe on (wildcards may be used).

The "Add" button in the bottom right of the form can be clicked to create the Credential.

Topic Examples:

• #
  
  • Allows publish or subscribe on all topics
• STATE/123
  • Allows publish or subscribe on the specific topic "STATE/123"
• spBv1.0/#
  • Allows publish or subscribe on all topics that start with "spBv1.0/", such as "spBv1.0/g1/DDATA/e1/d1"

Edit Credential

Clicking on an individual MQTT Credential in the table will display a form for editing the Credential.

The "Update" button in the bottom right can be clicked to update the Credential once all changes have been made.

MQTT Server

The MQTT Server page contains two tabs: Configuration and Bridging.

Configuration

The configuration tab is a simple form used to configure the MQTT Server.

The form contains the following fields:

• Enable Non-secure
  • Whether to enable non-secure client connections over plain TCP.
• Non-secure Port
  • The port that the MQTT Server will listen on for non-secure connections.
• Enable Secure
  • Whether to enable Secure client connections over SSL/TLS.
• Secure Port
  • The port that the MQTT Server will listen on for secure connections.
• Enable WebSocket
  • Whether to enable non-secure client connections over WebSockets.
• WebSocket Port
  • The port that the MQTT Server will listen on for non-secure WebSocket connections.
• Enable Secure WebSocket
  • Whether to enable secure client connections over WebSockets.
• Secure WebSocket Port
  • The port that the MQTT Server will listen on for secure WebSocket connections.
• Bind Address
  • The address that the MQTT Server will listen on for MQTT connections.
• Allow Anonymous
  • Whether to allow anonymous connections (no username and password).
• Anonymous MQTT Credentials
  • The MQTT Credentials to use for anonymous client's ACLs

The "Update" button in the bottom right can be clicked to update the MQTT Server configuration once all changes have been made.  An update will restart the MQTT server.

Bridging

A Bridge Client allows you to connect Chariot to another MQTT Server to share messages between the two servers. The shared messages can be restricted by topic filters to only share a subset of messages flowing through either of the servers.

A common usage is to connect edge MQTT brokers to a central or remote broker.

When enabled on Chariot, the Bridge Client becomes an MQTT client to the other MQTT Server. This client publishes messages, flowing through Chariot, to the other broker. It also subscribes on topics with the other broker to receive messages and deliver them to subscribed clients connected to Chariot.

To edit an existing bridge client, select the client from the UI. To add a new bridge client , select Add Bridge Client.

The form contains the following fields:

• Name
  • A unique name for the bridge connection.
• Enabled
  • Sets the enable state of the bridge connection.
• Username
  • Optional username for connecting to the server.
• Address
  • The server address.
• Port
  • The server port.
• Use TLS
  • Whether the bridge connection will be using SSL/TLS.

  By default Chariot comes with an empty truststore file clientcerts.jks which overrides the JVM cacerts truststore. If TLS is enabled, the following lines will need to be removed from the <Chariot_install_directory>/conf/com.cirruslink.chariot.system config file:

  • trustStoreFile="security/clientcerts.jks"
  • trustStorePassword="secretpassword"

  If the signer of the SSL/TLS cert installed on the remote MQTT Server is an external, commercial CA (e.g., DigiCert) the bridge client should successfully connect over TLS once you update the config file and restart Chariot.

  If the signer of the SSL/TLS cert installed on the remote MQTT Server is an internal, non-commercial, you will need to add your Root CA cert to the JVMs cacerts trust store and restart Chariot.

• Client ID
  • The MQTT client ID to use for connecting to the server.
• Keep Alive
  • The MQTT keep alive time in seconds.
• Clean Session
  • Whether to connect with a clean session.
• Allow Retained
  • Whether the retained message flag is allowed on messages published to the server.
• Try Private
  • Whether the client should attempt to indicate to the server that it is a bridge client.
  • This feature helps to detect message loopback, but is only supported by some MQTT servers and may need to be disabled in order to connect.
• Sub Topics
  • The topics filters that will be subscribed on by the bridge client.
  • The topic filters are of the form <topic>:<qos> or just <topic>.
• Pub Topics
  • The topics filters that will be published on by the bridge client. These are used to restrict/filter which messages (flowing through Chariot) are published to the remote server,
  • The topic filters are of the form <topic>:<qos> or just <topic>.

The "Update" button in the bottom right can be clicked to update the MQTT Server Bridging configuration once all changes have been made

License

The License page allows for adding, activating, and/or deactivating a Chariot License. A detailed tutorial for licensing Chariot can be found here Licensing Procedure.

Upload License

A Chariot License is represented by a text file which contains a license key.  The file can either be dragged/dropped into the "Upload License" form, or the license text can be pasted directly into the form.

The Activate toggle (in the Upload License form) can be used to auto-activate the license immediately after it is uploaded. This is a convenience to prevent the need to click Activate License after uploading a license.

Online Activation

Online Activation allows the Chariot MQTT Server to remotely connect to the Chariot Licensing server for activation and deactivation of Chariot Licenses. When the "Online Activation" is selected, the License page appears with the following options:

• Activate License
  • Activates an uploaded Chariot License by remotely accessing the Chariot Licensing Server.
• Deactivate License
  • Deactivates an uploaded & active Chariot License by remotely accessing the Chariot Licensing Server.

Offline Activation

Offline Activation requires the user to generate an activation request and provide it to Cirrus Link Solutions in order to obtain an Activation Code.  The Activation Code can then be uploaded into the Chariot MQTT Server to activate the previously uploaded Chariot License.  When the "Offline Activation" option is selected, the License page appears with the following options:

• Generate Activation Code
  • Generates an Activation Request Code.
• Deactivate and Generate Code
  • Deactivates an active Chariot License and generates a Deactivation Request Code.
• Upload Activation Code
  • Uploads an Activation Code that was obtained using the Generate Activation Code.

System

The System page allows for the configuration of the Chariot MQTT Server's system settings as well as enabling secure (SSL/TLS) connections and uploading certificates.  A detailed tutorial for setting up SSL/TLS can be found here: Securing Chariot® MQTT Server. 

Configuration

The System page uses the following form to configure the system settings:

The form contains the following fields:

• Server Name
  • An optional name for this Chariot installation.
• Enable HTTP
  • Whether to enable non-secure HTTP connections to the Chariot Web UI.
• HTTP Port
  • The port that the Chariot MQTT Server will use for HTTP.
• Enable HTTPS
  • Whether to enable Secure HTTPS connections to the Chariot Web UI.
• HTTPS Port
  • The port that the Chariot MQTT Server will use for HTTPS.

Certificates

The certificates tab provides the means to upload the necessary certificates and keys for setting up SSL/TLS.

The Certificates tab contains the following fields:

• Private Key
  • An RSA private key of type PKCS1 in PEM format that was used to generate the certificate signing request for the server Certificate
  • Review How to identify my Private Key type to verify the type

• CA Chain
  • An X.509 public root CA (Certificate Authority) certificate and any/all public intermediate CA certificates between the root and the CA that issued the certificate in PEM format. If there are no intermediate CAs, then the chain is made up of only the public root CA certificate.
• Certificate
  • An X.509 server certificate in PEM format.

Once the three files are uploaded, the "Setup SSL" button can be clicked to finish the setup.

If successful, the certificate information will now be displayed on the Certificates tab:

The "Delete SSL" button can be used to remove the certificate and key from the Chariot MQTT Server and revert to a "SSL Not Setup" state.

Backup/Restore

This tab allows for the backup and restore of Chariot configuration data.

• Export Backup
  • This button downloads a backup.zip file that contains the current configuration data of the Chariot instance.
• Restore From Backup
  • This button restore configuration data from backup.zip file.