This is a plugin to authenticate and authorize Mosquitto users from one of several distinct back-ends:

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• CDB
• SQLite3 database
• Redis key/value store
• TLS PSK (the psk back-end is a bit of a shim which piggy-backs onto the other database back-ends)
• LDAP
• HTTP (custom HTTP API)
• JWT
• MongoDB
• Files

This plugin can perform authentication (check username / password) and authorization (ACL). Currently not all back-ends have the same capabilities (the the section on the back-end you're interested in).

1. Topic wildcards (+/#) are not supported
2. Currently not implemented; back-end returns TRUE
3. Dependent on the database used by PSK

Multiple back-ends can be configured simultaneously for authentication, and they're attempted in the order you specify. Once a user has been authenticated, the same back-end is used to check authorization (ACLs). Superusers are checked for in all back-ends. The configuration option is called auth_opt_backends and it takes a comma-separated list of back-end names which are checked in exactly that order.

auth_opt_backends cdb,sqlite,mysql,redis,postgres,http,jwt,mongo

Note: anonymous MQTT connections are assigned a username of configured in the plugin as auth_opt_anonusername and they are handled by a so-called fallback back-end which is the first configured back-end.

Passwords are obtained from the back-end as a PBKDF2 string (see section on Passwords below). Even if you try and store a clear-text password, it simply won't work.

The mysql back-end supports expansion of %c and %u as clientid and username respectively. This allows ACLs in the database to look like this:

+-----------+---------------------------------+----+
| username  | topic                           | rw |
+-----------+---------------------------------+----+
| bridge-01 | $SYS/broker/connection/%c/state |  2 |
+-----------+---------------------------------+----+

The plugin supports so-called superusers. These are usernames exempt from ACL checking. In other words, if a user is a superuser, that user doesn't require ACLs.

A static superuser is one configured with the fnmatch(3) auth_opt_superusers option. The other 'superusers' are configured (i.e. enabled) from within the particular database back-end. Effectively both are identical in that ACL checking is disabled if a user is a superuser.

Note that not all back-ends currently have 'superuser' queries implemented. todo. At that point the auth_opt_superusers will probably disappear.

In order to compile the plugin you'll require a copy of the Mosquitto source code together with the libraries required for the back-end you want to use in the plugin. OpenSSL is also required.

Copy config.mk.in to config.mk and modify config.mk to suit your building environment, in particular, you have to configure which back-ends you want to provide as well as the path to the Mosquitto source and its library.

After a make you should have a shared object called auth-plug.so which you will reference in your mosquitto.conf.

Note that OpenSSL as shipped with OS X is probably too old. You may wish to use a version supplied by home brew or build your own, and then adapt OPENSSLDIR in config.mk.

The plugin is configured in Mosquitto's configuration file (typically mosquitto.conf), and it is loaded into Mosquitto auth the auth_plugin option.

auth_plugin /path/to/auth-plug.so

Options therein with a leading auth_opt_ are handed to the plugin. The following "global" auth_opt_* plugin options exist:

Individual back-ends have their options described in the sections below.

There are two caches, one for ACL and another for authentication. By default only the ACL cache is enabled.

After a backend responds (postitively or negatively) for an ACL or AUTH lookup, the result will be kept in cache for the configured TTL, the same ACL lookup will be served from the cache as long as the TTL is valid. The configured TTL is the auth/acl_cacheseconds combined with a random value between -auth/acl_cachejitter and +auth/acl_cachejitter. For example, with an acl_cacheseconds of 300 and acl_cachejitter of 10, ACL lookup TTL are distributed between 290 and 310 seconds.

Set auth/acl_cachejitter to 0 disable any randomization of cache TTL. Settings auth/acl_cacheseconds to 0 disable caching entirely. Caching is useful when your backend lookup is expensive. Remember that ACL lookup will be performed for each message which is sent/received on a topic. Jitter is useful to reduce lookup storms that could occur every auth/acl_cacheseconds if lots of clients connect at the same time (for example after a server restart, all your clients may reconnect immediately and all may cause ACL lookups every acl_cacheseconds).

The mysql back-end is currently the most feature-complete: it supports obtaining passwords, checking for superusers, and verifying ACLs by configuring up to three distinct SQL queries used to obtain those results.

You configure the SQL queries in order to adapt to whichever schema you currently have.

The following auth_opt_ options are supported by the mysql back-end:

The SQL query for looking up a user's password hash is mandatory. The query MUST return a single row only (any other number of rows is considered to be "user not found"), and it MUST return a single column only with the PBKDF2 password hash. A single '%s' in the query string is replaced by the username attempting to access the broker.

SELECT pw FROM users WHERE username = '%s' LIMIT 1

The SQL query for checking whether a user is a superuser - and thus circumventing ACL checks - is optional. If it is specified, the query MUST return a single row with a single value: 0 is false and 1 is true. We recommend using a SELECT IFNULL(COUNT(*),0) FROM ... for this query as it satisfies both conditions. ). A single '%s' in the query string is replaced by the username attempting to access the broker. The following example uses the same users table, but it could just as well reference a distinct table or view.

SELECT IFNULL(COUNT(*), 0) FROM users WHERE username = '%s' AND super = 1

The SQL query for checking ACLs is optional, but if it is specified, the mysql back-end can try to limit access to particular topics or topic branches depending on the value of a database table. The query MAY return zero or more rows for a particular user, each returning EXACTLY one column containing a topic (wildcards are supported). A single '%s' in the query string is replaced by the username attempting to access the broker, and a single '%d' is replaced with the integer value 1 signifying a read-only access attempt (SUB) or 2 signifying a read-write access attempt (PUB).

In the following example, the table has an INT(1) column rw containing 1 for readonly topics, and 2 for read-write topics:

SELECT topic FROM acls WHERE (username = '%s') AND (rw >= %d)

Mosquitto configuration for the mysql back-end:

auth_plugin /home/jpm/mosquitto-auth-plug/auth-plug.so
auth_opt_host localhost
auth_opt_port 3306
auth_opt_dbname test
auth_opt_user jjj
auth_opt_pass supersecret
auth_opt_userquery SELECT pw FROM users WHERE username = '%s'
auth_opt_superquery SELECT COUNT(*) FROM users WHERE username = '%s' AND super = 1
auth_opt_aclquery SELECT topic FROM acls WHERE (username = '%s') AND (rw >= %d)
auth_opt_anonusername AnonymouS

Assuming the following database tables:

mysql> SELECT * FROM users;
+----+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
| id | username | pw                                                                  | super |
+----+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
|  1 | jjolie   | PBKDF2$sha256$901$x8mf3JIFTUFU9C23$Mid2xcgTrKBfBdye6W/4hE3GKeksu00+ |     0 |
|  2 | a        | PBKDF2$sha256$901$XPkOwNbd05p5XsUn$1uPtR6hMKBedWE44nqdVg+2NPKvyGst8 |     0 |
|  3 | su1      | PBKDF2$sha256$901$chEZ4HcSmKtlV0kf$yRh2N62uq6cHoAB6FIrxIN2iihYqNIJp |     1 |
+----+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+

mysql> SELECT * FROM acls;
+----+----------+-------------------+----+
| id | username | topic             | rw |
+----+----------+-------------------+----+
|  1 | jjolie   | loc/jjolie        |  1 |
|  2 | jjolie   | $SYS/something    |  1 |
|  3 | a        | loc/test/#        |  1 |
|  4 | a        | $SYS/broker/log/+ |  1 |
|  5 | su1      | mega/secret       |  1 |
|  6 | nop      | mega/secret       |  1 |
+----+----------+-------------------+----+

the above SQL queries would enable the following combinations (note the * at the beginning of the line indicating a superuser)

  jjolie     PBKDF2$sha256$901$x8mf3JIFTUFU9C23$Mid2xcgTrKBfBdye6W/4hE3GKeksu00+
	loc/a                                    DENY
	loc/jjolie                               PERMIT
	mega/secret                              DENY
	loc/test                                 DENY
	$SYS/broker/log/N                        DENY
  nop        <nil>
	loc/a                                    DENY
	loc/jjolie                               DENY
	mega/secret                              PERMIT
	loc/test                                 DENY
	$SYS/broker/log/N                        DENY
  a          PBKDF2$sha256$901$XPkOwNbd05p5XsUn$1uPtR6hMKBedWE44nqdVg+2NPKvyGst8
	loc/a                                    DENY
	loc/jjolie                               DENY
	mega/secret                              DENY
	loc/test                                 PERMIT
	$SYS/broker/log/N                        PERMIT
* su1        PBKDF2$sha256$901$chEZ4HcSmKtlV0kf$yRh2N62uq6cHoAB6FIrxIN2iihYqNIJp
	loc/a                                    PERMIT
	loc/jjolie                               PERMIT
	mega/secret                              PERMIT
	loc/test                                 PERMIT
	$SYS/broker/log/N                        PERMIT

The mysql back-end will re-connect to the MySQL server when the connection has gone away. If you wish, you can disable this by configuring:

auth_opt_mysql_opt_reconnect false
auth_opt_mysql_auto_connect false

The LDAP plugin currently does authentication only; authenticated users are allowed to publish/subscribe at will.

The user with which Mosquitto connects to the broker is searched in the LDAP directory via the ldap_uri configuration parameter. This LDAP search MUST return exactly one entry. The user's password is then use with the DN of the entry found to bind to the directory. If that LDAP bind succeeds, the user is authenticated. In other cases, authentication fails.

Example configuration:

auth_plugin /path/to/auth-plug.so
auth_opt_backends ldap
auth_opt_binddn cn=manager,dc=mens,dc=de
auth_opt_bindpw s3crit
auth_opt_ldap_uri ldap:https://127.0.0.1/ou=Users,dc=mens,dc=de?cn?sub?(&(objectclass=inetOrgPerson)(uid=@))

Example:

auth_opt_sqliteuserquery SELECT pw FROM users WHERE username = ?

auth_opt_redis_userquery GET %s
auth_opt_redis_aclquery GET %s-%s

In auth_opt_redis_userquery the parameter is the username, whereas in auth_opt_redis_aclquery, the first parameter is the username and the second is the topic. When using ACLS topic must be an exact match - wildcards are not supported.

If no options are provided then it will default to not using an ACL and using the above userquery.

The http back-end is for auth by custom HTTP API.

The following auth_opt_ options are supported by the http back-end:

If the configured URLs return an HTTP status code == 2xx, the authentication / authorization succeeds. If the status code == 4xx authentication / authorization fails. For status code == 5xx or server unreachable, the HTTP request will be retried up to http_retry_count. If all tries fail and if no other backend succeeded, then an error is returned and client is disconnected.

Mosquitto configuration for the http back-end:

auth_opt_backends http
auth_opt_http_ip 127.0.0.1
auth_opt_http_port 8089
#auth_opt_http_hostname example.org
auth_opt_http_getuser_uri /auth
auth_opt_http_superuser_uri /superuser
auth_opt_http_aclcheck_uri /acl

A very simple example service using Python and bottle can be found in examples/http-auth-be.py.

The http plugin can utilize environment variables which are exported before it (i.e. Mosquitto) is started by adding configuration settings like

auth_opt_<interface>_<method>_params <key>=<evn_name>[,<key>=<evn_name>]*

For example, set the following:

export DOMAIN=example.com
export PORT=8080

and add the following settings to mosquitto.conf:

auth_opt_http_getuser_params domain=DOMAIN,port=PORT
auth_opt_http_superuser_params domain=DOMAIN,port=PORT
auth_opt_http_aclcheck_params domain=DOMAIN,port=PORT

The jwt back-end is for auth by JWT-webtokens. The JWT and HTTP configurations are identical, so please read the http-section above.

The username-field is interpreted as the token-field and passed to the http-server in an Authorization-header.

Authorization: Bearer %token

Note: Some clients require the password-field to be populated. This field is ignored by the JWT-backend, so feel free to input some gibberish.

The postgres like mysql back-end is currently the most feature-complete: it supports obtaining passwords, checking for superusers, and verifying ACLs by configuring up to three distinct SQL queries used to obtain those results.

You configure the SQL queries in order to adapt to whichever schema you currently have.

The following auth_opt_ options are supported by the mysql back-end:

The SQL query for looking up a user's password hash is mandatory. The query MUST return a single row only (any other number of rows is considered to be "user not found"), and it MUST return a single column only with the PBKDF2 password hash. A single '$1' in the query string is replaced by the username attempting to access the broker.

SELECT pass FROM account WHERE username = $1 limit 1

The SQL query for checking whether a user is a superuser - and thus circumventing ACL checks - is optional. If it is specified, the query MUST return a single row with a single value: 0 is false and 1 is true. We recommend using a SELECT COALESCE(COUNT(*),0) FROM ... for this query as it satisfies both conditions. ). A single '$1' in the query string is replaced by the username attempting to access the broker. The following example uses the same users table, but it could just as well reference a distinct table or view.

SELECT COALESCE(COUNT(*),0) FROM account WHERE username = $1 AND super = 1

The SQL query for checking ACLs is optional, but if it is specified, the mysql back-end can try to limit access to particular topics or topic branches depending on the value of a database table. The query MAY return zero or more rows for a particular user, each returning EXACTLY one column containing a topic (wildcards are supported). A single '$1' in the query string is replaced by the username attempting to access the broker, and a single '$2' is replaced with the integer value 1 signifying a read-only access attempt (SUB) or 2 signifying a read-write access attempt (PUB).

In the following example, the table has a column rw containing 1 for readonly topics, 2 for writeonly topics and 3 for readwrite topics:

SELECT topic FROM acl WHERE (username = $1) AND rw >= $2

Mosquitto configuration for the postgres back-end:

auth_plugin /home/jpm/mosquitto-auth-plug/auth-plug.so
auth_opt_host localhost
auth_opt_port 5432
auth_opt_dbname test
auth_opt_user jjj
auth_opt_pass supersecret
auth_opt_userquery SELECT pw FROM account WHERE username = $1 limit 1
auth_opt_superquery SELECT COALESCE(COUNT(*),0) FROM account WHERE username = $1 AND mosquitto_super = 1
auth_opt_aclquery SELECT topic FROM acls WHERE (username = $1) AND (rw & $2) > 0
auth_opt_sslcert /etc/postgresql/ssl/client.crt
auth_opt_sslkey /etc/postgresql/ssl/client.key

Assuming the following database tables:

=> SELECT * FROM account;
+----+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
| id | username | pw                                                                  | super |
+----+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+
|  1 | jjolie   | PBKDF2$sha256$901$x8mf3JIFTUFU9C23$Mid2xcgTrKBfBdye6W/4hE3GKeksu00+ |     0 |
|  2 | a        | PBKDF2$sha256$901$XPkOwNbd05p5XsUn$1uPtR6hMKBedWE44nqdVg+2NPKvyGst8 |     0 |
|  3 | su1      | PBKDF2$sha256$901$chEZ4HcSmKtlV0kf$yRh2N62uq6cHoAB6FIrxIN2iihYqNIJp |     1 |
+----+----------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+

=> SELECT * FROM acls;
+----+----------+-------------------+----+
| id | username | topic             | rw |
+----+----------+-------------------+----+
|  1 | jjolie   | loc/jjolie        |  1 |
|  2 | jjolie   | $SYS/something    |  1 |
|  3 | a        | loc/test/#        |  1 |
|  4 | a        | $SYS/broker/log/+ |  1 |
|  5 | su1      | mega/secret       |  1 |
|  6 | nop      | mega/secret       |  1 |
+----+----------+-------------------+----+

the above SQL queries would enable the following combinations (note the * at the beginning of the line indicating a superuser)

  jjolie     PBKDF2$sha256$901$x8mf3JIFTUFU9C23$Mid2xcgTrKBfBdye6W/4hE3GKeksu00+
  loc/a                                    DENY
  loc/jjolie                               PERMIT
  mega/secret                              DENY
  loc/test                                 DENY
  $SYS/broker/log/N                        DENY
  nop        <nil>
  loc/a                                    DENY
  loc/jjolie                               DENY
  mega/secret                              PERMIT
  loc/test                                 DENY
  $SYS/broker/log/N                        DENY
  a          PBKDF2$sha256$901$XPkOwNbd05p5XsUn$1uPtR6hMKBedWE44nqdVg+2NPKvyGst8
  loc/a                                    DENY
  loc/jjolie                               DENY
  mega/secret                              DENY
  loc/test                                 PERMIT
  $SYS/broker/log/N                        PERMIT
* su1        PBKDF2$sha256$901$chEZ4HcSmKtlV0kf$yRh2N62uq6cHoAB6FIrxIN2iihYqNIJp
  loc/a                                    PERMIT
  loc/jjolie                               PERMIT
  mega/secret                              PERMIT
  loc/test                                 PERMIT
  $SYS/broker/log/N                        PERMIT

The mongo back-end works with superuser and ACL checks. Additional build dependencies are https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-c-driver >=1.4.0 and https://github.com/mongodb/libbson >=1.4.0.

You should set up a users collection (required) and a topic lists collection (optional) with the following format:

Each user document must have a username, a hashed password, and at least one of:

• A superuser prop, allowing full access to all topics
• An embedded array or sub-document to use as an ACL (see 'ACL format')
• A foreign key pointing to another document containing an ACL (see 'ACL format')

You may use any combination of these options; authorisation will be granted if any check passes.

The user document has the following format (note that the property names are configurable variables, see 'Configuration').

{
    [user_username_prop]: string, // Username as given in the MQTT connect request
    [user_password_prop]: string, // A PBKDF2 hash, see 'Passwords' section
    [user_topiclist_fk_prop]: int | oid | string, // reference to a document in collection_topics)
    [user_topics_prop]: string[] | { [topic: string]: "r"|"w"|"rw" }, // see 'ACL format'
    [user_superuser_prop]: int | boolean // optional, superuser if truthy
}

As an example using default options, a user document with an embedded ACL might look like:

{
    "username": "user1",
    "password": "PBKDF2$sha256$901$8ebTR72Pcmjl3cYq$SCVHHfqn9t6Ev9sE6RMTeF3pawvtGqTu",
    "superuser": false,
    "topics": {
        "public/#": "r",
	"client/user1/#": "rw"
    }
}

If the user document references a separate topics document, that document should exist and must have the format:

{
    [topiclist_key_prop]: int | oid | string, // unique id, as referenced by users[user_topiclist_fk_prop],
    [topiclist_topics_prop]: string[] | { [topic: string]: "r"|"w"|"rw" } // see 'ACL format'
}

This strategy will be especially suitable if you have a complex ACL shared between many users.

Topics may be given as either an array of topic strings, eg ["topic1/#", "topic2/+"], in which case all topics will be read-write, or as a sub-document mapping topic names to the strings "r", "w", "rw", eg { "article/#":"r", "article/+/comments":"rw", "ballotbox":"w" }.

The following auth_opt_mongo_ options are supported by the mongo back-end:

Mosquitto configuration for the mongo back-end:

auth_plugin /home/jpm/mosquitto-auth-plug/auth-plug.so
auth_opt_mongo_uri mongodb:https://localhost:27017

The files backend attempts to re-implement the files behavior in vanilla Mosquitto, however the user's password file contains PBKDF2 passwords instead of passwords hashed with the mosquitto-passwd program; you would use our np utility or similar to create the PBKDF2 hashes.

The configuration directives for the Files backend are as follows:

auth_opt_backends files
auth_opt_password_file file.pw
auth_opt_acl_file file.acl

with examples of these files being:

# comment
jpm:PBKDF2$sha256$901$UGfDz79cAaydRsEF$XvYwauPeviFd1NfbGL+dxcn1K7BVfMeW
jane:PBKDF2$sha256$901$wvvH0fe7Ftszt8nR$NZV6XWWg01dCRiPOheVNsgMJDX1mzd2v

user jane
topic read #

user jpm
topic dd

The syntax for the ACL file is that as described in mosquitto.conf(5).

A user's password is stored as a PBKDF2 hash in the back-end. An example "password" is a string with five pieces in it, delimited by $, inspired by this.

PBKDF2$sha256$901$8ebTR72Pcmjl3cYq$SCVHHfqn9t6Ev9sE6RMTeF3pawvtGqTu
--^--- --^--- -^- ------^--------- -------------^------------------
  |      |     |        |                       |
  |      |     |        |                       +-- : hashed password
  |      |     |        +-------------------------- : salt
  |      |     +----------------------------------- : iterations
  |      +----------------------------------------- : hash function
  +------------------------------------------------ : marker

Note that the salt by default will be taken as-is (thus it will not be base64 decoded before the validation). In case your own implementation uses the raw bytes when hashing the password and base64 is only used for display purpose, compile this project with the -DRAW_SALT flag (you could add this in the config.mk file to CFG_CFLAGS).

A trivial utility to generate hashes is included as np. Copy and paste the whole string generated into the respective back-end.

$ np
Enter password:
Re-enter same password:
PBKDF2$sha256$901$Qh18ysY4wstXoHhk$g8d2aDzbz3rYztvJiO3dsV698jzECxSg

For example, in Redis:

$ redis-cli
> SET n2 PBKDF2$sha256$901$Qh18ysY4wstXoHhk$g8d2aDzbz3rYztvJiO3dsV698jzECxSg
> QUIT

listener 1883

auth_plugin /path/to/auth-plug.so
auth_opt_redis_host 127.0.0.1
auth_opt_redis_port 6379

# Usernames with this fnmatch(3) (a.k.a glob(3))  pattern are exempt from the
# module's ACL checking
auth_opt_superusers S*

In addition to ACL checking which is possibly performed by a back-end, there's a more "static" checking which can be configured in mosquitto.conf.

Note that if ACLs are being verified by the plugin, this also applies to Will topics (last will and testament). Failing to correctly set up an ACL for these, will cause a broker to silently fail with a 'not authorized' message.

Users can be given "superuser" status (i.e. they may access any topic) if their username matches the glob specified in auth_opt_superusers.

In our example above, any user with a username beginning with a capital "S" is exempt from ACL-checking.

At this point you ought to be able to connect to Mosquitto.

mosquitto_pub  -t '/location/n2' -m hello -u n2 -P secret

If Mosquitto has been built with PSK support, and auth-plug has been built with BE_PSK defined, it supports authenticating PSK connections over TLS, as long as Mosquitto is appropriately configured.

The way this works is that the psk back-end actually uses one of auth-plug's other databases (mysql, sqlite, cdb, etc.) to obtain the pre-shared key from the "users" query, and it uses the same database's back-end for performing authorization (aka ACL checks).

Consider the following mosquitto.conf snippet:

...
auth_opt_psk_database mysql
...
listener 8885
psk_hint hint1
tls_version tlsv1
use_identity_as_username true

TLS PSK is available on port 8885 and is activated with, say,

mosquitto_pub -h localhost -p 8885 -t x -m hi --psk-identity ps2 --psk 020202

The use_identity_as_username option has auth-plug see the name ps2 as the username, and this is given to the database back-end (here: mysql) to look up the password as defined for the mysql back-end. auth-plug uses its getuser() query to read the clear-text (not PKBDF2) hex key string which it returns to Mosquitto for authentication. If authentication passes, the connection is established.

For authorization, auth_plug uses the identity as the username and the topic to perform ACL-checking as described earlier.

The following log-snippet serves as an illustration:

New connection from ::1 on port 8885.
|-- psk_key_get(hint1, ps1) from [mysql] finds PSK: 1
New client connected from ::1 as mosqpub/90759-tiggr.ww. (c1, k60).
Sending CONNACK to mosqpub/90759-tiggr.ww. (0)
|-- user ps1 was authenticated in back-end 0 (psk)
|--   mysql: topic_matches(x, x) == 1
|-- aclcheck(ps1, x, 2) AUTHORIZED=1 by psk
Received PUBLISH from mosqpub/90759-tiggr.ww. (d0, q0, r0, m0, 'x', ... (2 bytes))
Received DISCONNECT from mosqpub/90759-tiggr.ww.

• hiredis, the Minimalistic C client for Redis
• OpenSSL (tested with 1.0.0c, but should work with earlier versions)
• A Mosquitto broker
• A Redis server
• MySQL
• TinyCDB by Michael Tokarev (included in contrib/).

• Uses base64.[ch] (and yes, I know OpenSSL has base64 routines, but no thanks). These files are

Copyright (c) 1995, 1996, 1997 Kungliga Tekniska Hgskolan (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden).

• Uses [uthash][2] by Troy D. Hanson.

• mosquitto_pyauth
• mosquitto-auth-plugin-http
• lua_auth_plugin

• How to make Access Control Lists (ACL) work for Mosquitto MQTT Broker with Auth Plugin