farmbotProxy

An mqtt proxy server for farmbot.

Table of Contents

• Flow Diagram
• Prerequisites
• Usage
• Configuration
• Topics
• Installation

Flow Diagram

flowchart TB
classDef borderless stroke-width:0px
classDef darkBlue fill:#00008B, color:#fff
classDef brightBlue fill:#6082B6, color:#fff
classDef gray fill:#62524F, color:#fff
classDef gray2 fill:#4F625B, color:#fff
classDef red fill:#f00, color:#fff

subgraph publicUser[ ]
    pU_A[[Authorized User<br/> ]]
    pU_B[...]
end
class publicUser,pU_A gray

subgraph simulator[ ]
    A1[[Client<br/> ]]
    B1[Farmbot Simulator]
end
class simulator,A1 gray


subgraph farmbotProxy[ ]
    A3[[farmbot Proxy]]
    B3[Creates a persistent session]
end
class farmbotProxy,A3 brightBlue

subgraph billingServer[ ]
    bs_A[[Billing Server]]
    bs_B[...]
end
class billingServer,bs_A red

publicUser---->simulator
publicUser---->billingServer
simulator<--Data exchange using mqtt-->farmbotProxy
farmbotProxy<--Rest API-->billingServer


subgraph farmbotServer[ ]
    A4[[Farmbot Server]]
end

class farmbotServer,A4,A5,A6 gray2

farmbotProxy<--Data exchange using mqtt-->farmbotServer

class A1,A2,A3,A4,A5,B1,B2,B3,B4,B5,bs_A,bs_B,pU_A borderless

This proxy server creates a persistent connection to the farmbot server so that there is no need for reconnection every time a client connects. It also hands the publishing of certain data such as logs, etc. This behaviour is especially important when developing applications that require an mqtt connection to the farmbot server/broker. If bugs occur, for instance, the application may be restarted several times during debugging and this may result in it exceeding the rate limit and getting locked out for sometime, thus wasting a lot of time. This proxy broker solves this problem.

Another further use is in implementing billing for farmbot simulator. Refer to the diagram above.

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Prerequisites

You need to have ssl certificates. You can generate self signed certificates using certbot. It is assumed that the certificates are in /etc/letsencrypt/live/{domain}/ which is the default location where certbot saves them. If you are running in a dev environment, however, you do not need to worry about ssl. They will be ignored.

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Usage

Usage:
  farmbotproxy [command]

Available Commands:
  help        Help about any command
  init        Create service and config files
  restart     Restart farmbotproxy service
  run         Run farmbotproxy
  start       Start farmbotproxy service
  stop        Stop farmbotproxy service

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for farmbotproxy
  -p, --prod   Run in production

This program reads settings from /etc/farmbotproxy/*. So you need to create these first. This will require sudo But it will download packages in /root/go/... which will clatter your disc.

sudo go run . init

The workaround is to first build it, then run the init command:

make build
cd builds
sudo ./farmbotproxy init

To initialize production settings use -p

sudo ./farmbotproxy init -p

There is only one settings file in /etc/farmbotsimulator/ but different services for dev and production.

To run the program:

go run . run

To create the .deb files

make debs

You can also start the service. But we do not recommed that you do this in development. If you desire to do this, you can refer to Installation below.

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Installation

Download the relevant file for your system from releases

curl --silent "https://api.github.com/repos/FarmbotSimulator/farmbotProxy/releases/latest"|   grep "browser_download_url.*amd64.deb" | head -n 1 | cut -d : -f 2,3 | tr -d \"  | xargs wget -O tmp.deb && sudo dpkg -i tmp.deb

If all things go well you should have the service running:

sudo systemctl status farmbotproxy

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Configuration

Websocket listens on the path /mqtt

These are the configuration you should edit in /etc/farmbotproxy/farmbotproxy.yml

Item	Description
FARMBOTURL	url of farmbot server. Default: https://my.farmbot.io/api
domain	domain you are using to host farmbot proxy. The certifites are read from /etc/letsencrypt/live/%{domain}/", domain. You can disable tls or run in dev mode if you do not have a domain or certificate
TLS	If TLS is enabled in production. It cannot be enabled in development.
DASHBOARD	Whether to server dashboard
PORTDASHBOARD	Dashboard port
PORTMQTT	Mqtt port
PORTWS	Websocket port

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Topics.. from 9pm

• Query bot postion on connect

Authentication

Topics

topic	Client	Broker	Description
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Known Bugs

1. concurrent map writes

Todo

• Reading version from config when packaging
• checkorigin: provide means of adding in config file. But this requires to be done in libary

References

• Creating .deb