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MQ Explorer UI tutorials

This section describes the three main features of the MQ Explorer:

  • The Dashboard to monitor the MQTT broker activities.

  • The MQTT Management tool to publish and subscribe to topics.

  • Access to the API Explorer from MQ Explorer.

Access MQ Explorer

  1. Start the FairCom Edge browser-based tools (https://localhost:8443/) menu.

    FairComEdgeHome.png

  2. Select MQ Explorer.

Dashboard features

Connecting to MQ Explorer displays the Figure 1, “MQTT Explorer Dashboard”. This section goes over the features you can use from the dashboard.

Figure 1. MQTT Explorer Dashboard
MQTT Explorer Dashboard


Control menu

Figure 2. Control menu
Control menu


The Control menu (ConrtolMenuIcon.png) contains the MQ Explorer features:

  • Dashboard

  • MQTT Management

  • API Explorer

Dashboard Containers

The Dashboard displays containers that are empty until activity in the container occurs.

  • Connections

  • Disconnections

  • Topics

  • Last Will Messages

  • Retained Messages

  • Subscriptions

  • Inbound Messages

  • Outbound Messages

  • Connection Events — Shown on the Historical Dashboard. The Show Historical and Show Current button toggles dashboards.

    HistoricalDashboard.png

Time intervals

Figure 3. Time intervals
Time intervals


Time intervals are displayed above the containers:

  • Click the desired time interval to select the duration of time for collecting data. The number of messages processed within each time interval is displayed in the inbound and outbound containers.

  • A Refresh icon (Refresh.png) allows you to update the graphs with the latest data. The default refresh rate is 15 seconds.

Connections

Figure 4. Connections
Connections


The Connections section of the dashboard contains information regarding client connections to the running FairCom broker.

MQTT Management

This section provides procedures for managing subscriptions and publishing messages.

Select MQTT Management from the menu OptionsMenuIcon.png:

mqttManagement.png

Manage Subscriptions window

Use the Manage Subscriptions window to subscribe to a topic or view messages.

Subscribe to a topic

Figure 5. Manage Subscriptions window
Manage Subscriptions window


  1. In the MQTT Management window, click (Subscribe.png).

  2. Enter the Topic you wish to subscribe to in the Topic textbox .

  3. Click (_Subscribe.png).

  4. The topic is listed in the Manage Subscriptions window.

Publish Message window

Figure 6. Publish Message window
Publish Message window


  1. In the MQTT Management window, click (Publish.png).

  2. Enter the topic you wish to publish or select it from the drop-down menu of the Topic textbox.

  3. Enter the message you wish to send in the textbox.

  4. Check the Also subscribe checkbox to automatically subscribe to the same topic so the published message will display in the Incoming Messages window.

  5. Click Screenshot_2023-12-01_144145.png.

  6. The message appears in the Incoming Messages window.

View messages

Figure 7. View messages in MQTT Management
View messages in MQTT Management


  • Select a message header to view the full message payload.

API Explorer

Access the API Explorer from the MQ Explorer

  1. Select API Explorer from the Control menu (ConrtolMenuIcon.png).

    APIExplorer.png

  2. Observe the API Explorer and see the API Explorer UI documentation for its features and functions.

This URL launches a menu for running the FairCom browser-based applications. It works when a Google Chrome web browser runs on the same computer where the FairCom server is running.

Google Chrome may complain that your connection is not private. To resolve this issue see Solve certificate security problems in Google Chrome. FairCom browser-based applications are safe and become more secure when you replace FairCom's default certificate with your own security certificate.

If https://localhost:8443/ does not work, try https://127.0.0.1:8443/ . Also make sure the FairCom server is running.

When running the Google Chrome web browser and the FairCom server on different computers, change localhost to the hostname or IP Address of the server where the FairCom server is running.