Umqtt simply.py renewing connection

Showing my ignorance of things HA/MQTT/Micropython………

My weather station and RW Tank Pico W controllers push MQTT data (via umqtt simple) to HA on a Pi5. If for some reason HA appears offline (wi-fi down, I’m working in HA, etc) to the Pico’s, they don’t recover the MQTT connection and fail.

I think this is due to my code calling mqtt_client.connect() once only at start up. mqtt_client.publish does not seem to have any error trapping or connection check.

To me the simple fix is to mod my code to call mqtt_client.connect() each time the Pico tries to publish. Would this cause an issue if the mqtt connection was already established?

Or is a more elegant solution that my code confirms the mqtt connection prior to publishing? If so, how is this done?

Cheers,

Mark

umqtt simple.py

import socket
import struct
from binascii import hexlify


class MQTTException(Exception):
    pass


class MQTTClient:
    def __init__(
        self,
        client_id,
        server,
        port=0,
        user=None,
        password=None,
        keepalive=0,
        ssl=None,
        ssl_params={},
    ):
        if port == 0:
            port = 8883 if ssl else 1883
        self.client_id = client_id
        self.sock = None
        self.server = server
        self.port = port
        self.ssl = ssl
        self.ssl_params = ssl_params
        self.pid = 0
        self.cb = None
        self.user = user
        self.pswd = password
        self.keepalive = keepalive
        self.lw_topic = None
        self.lw_msg = None
        self.lw_qos = 0
        self.lw_retain = False

    def _send_str(self, s):
        self.sock.write(struct.pack("!H", len(s)))
        self.sock.write(s)

    def _recv_len(self):
        n = 0
        sh = 0
        while 1:
            b = self.sock.read(1)[0]
            n |= (b & 0x7F) << sh
            if not b & 0x80:
                return n
            sh += 7

    def set_callback(self, f):
        self.cb = f

    def set_last_will(self, topic, msg, retain=False, qos=0):
        assert 0 <= qos <= 2
        assert topic
        self.lw_topic = topic
        self.lw_msg = msg
        self.lw_qos = qos
        self.lw_retain = retain

    def connect(self, clean_session=True, timeout=None):
        self.sock = socket.socket()
        self.sock.settimeout(timeout)
        addr = socket.getaddrinfo(self.server, self.port)[0][-1]
        self.sock.connect(addr)
        if self.ssl is True:
            # Legacy support for ssl=True and ssl_params arguments.
            import ssl

            self.sock = ssl.wrap_socket(self.sock, **self.ssl_params)
        elif self.ssl:
            self.sock = self.ssl.wrap_socket(self.sock, server_hostname=self.server)
        premsg = bytearray(b"\x10\0\0\0\0\0")
        msg = bytearray(b"\x04MQTT\x04\x02\0\0")

        sz = 10 + 2 + len(self.client_id)
        msg[6] = clean_session << 1
        if self.user:
            sz += 2 + len(self.user) + 2 + len(self.pswd)
            msg[6] |= 0xC0
        if self.keepalive:
            assert self.keepalive < 65536
            msg[7] |= self.keepalive >> 8
            msg[8] |= self.keepalive & 0x00FF
        if self.lw_topic:
            sz += 2 + len(self.lw_topic) + 2 + len(self.lw_msg)
            msg[6] |= 0x4 | (self.lw_qos & 0x1) << 3 | (self.lw_qos & 0x2) << 3
            msg[6] |= self.lw_retain << 5

        i = 1
        while sz > 0x7F:
            premsg[i] = (sz & 0x7F) | 0x80
            sz >>= 7
            i += 1
        premsg[i] = sz

        self.sock.write(premsg, i + 2)
        self.sock.write(msg)
        # print(hex(len(msg)), hexlify(msg, ":"))
        self._send_str(self.client_id)
        if self.lw_topic:
            self._send_str(self.lw_topic)
            self._send_str(self.lw_msg)
        if self.user:
            self._send_str(self.user)
            self._send_str(self.pswd)
        resp = self.sock.read(4)
        assert resp[0] == 0x20 and resp[1] == 0x02
        if resp[3] != 0:
            raise MQTTException(resp[3])
        return resp[2] & 1

    def disconnect(self):
        self.sock.write(b"\xe0\0")
        self.sock.close()

    def ping(self):
        self.sock.write(b"\xc0\0")

    def publish(self, topic, msg, retain=False, qos=0):
        pkt = bytearray(b"\x30\0\0\0")
        pkt[0] |= qos << 1 | retain
        sz = 2 + len(topic) + len(msg)
        if qos > 0:
            sz += 2
        assert sz < 2097152
        i = 1
        while sz > 0x7F:
            pkt[i] = (sz & 0x7F) | 0x80
            sz >>= 7
            i += 1
        pkt[i] = sz
        # print(hex(len(pkt)), hexlify(pkt, ":"))
        self.sock.write(pkt, i + 1)
        self._send_str(topic)
        if qos > 0:
            self.pid += 1
            pid = self.pid
            struct.pack_into("!H", pkt, 0, pid)
            self.sock.write(pkt, 2)
        self.sock.write(msg)
        if qos == 1:
            while 1:
                op = self.wait_msg()
                if op == 0x40:
                    sz = self.sock.read(1)
                    assert sz == b"\x02"
                    rcv_pid = self.sock.read(2)
                    rcv_pid = rcv_pid[0] << 8 | rcv_pid[1]
                    if pid == rcv_pid:
                        return
        elif qos == 2:
            assert 0

    def subscribe(self, topic, qos=0):
        assert self.cb is not None, "Subscribe callback is not set"
        pkt = bytearray(b"\x82\0\0\0")
        self.pid += 1
        struct.pack_into("!BH", pkt, 1, 2 + 2 + len(topic) + 1, self.pid)
        # print(hex(len(pkt)), hexlify(pkt, ":"))
        self.sock.write(pkt)
        self._send_str(topic)
        self.sock.write(qos.to_bytes(1, "little"))
        while 1:
            op = self.wait_msg()
            if op == 0x90:
                resp = self.sock.read(4)
                # print(resp)
                assert resp[1] == pkt[2] and resp[2] == pkt[3]
                if resp[3] == 0x80:
                    raise MQTTException(resp[3])
                return

    # Wait for a single incoming MQTT message and process it.
    # Subscribed messages are delivered to a callback previously
    # set by .set_callback() method. Other (internal) MQTT
    # messages processed internally.
    def wait_msg(self):
        res = self.sock.read(1)
        self.sock.setblocking(True)
        if res is None:
            return None
        if res == b"":
            raise OSError(-1)
        if res == b"\xd0":  # PINGRESP
            sz = self.sock.read(1)[0]
            assert sz == 0
            return None
        op = res[0]
        if op & 0xF0 != 0x30:
            return op
        sz = self._recv_len()
        topic_len = self.sock.read(2)
        topic_len = (topic_len[0] << 8) | topic_len[1]
        topic = self.sock.read(topic_len)
        sz -= topic_len + 2
        if op & 6:
            pid = self.sock.read(2)
            pid = pid[0] << 8 | pid[1]
            sz -= 2
        msg = self.sock.read(sz)
        self.cb(topic, msg)
        if op & 6 == 2:
            pkt = bytearray(b"\x40\x02\0\0")
            struct.pack_into("!H", pkt, 2, pid)
            self.sock.write(pkt)
        elif op & 6 == 4:
            assert 0
        return op

    # Checks whether a pending message from server is available.
    # If not, returns immediately with None. Otherwise, does
    # the same processing as wait_msg.
    def check_msg(self):
        self.sock.setblocking(False)
        return self.wait_msg()


__version__ = '1.6.0'


I’ve made my mqtt connection call a function that is called prior to each mqtt publish. 10s delay between the connect call and publish.

Seems to work…

Just keep in mind that it may or may not be ideal. this is just for thought and fully up to you if you think its of value or not.

i.e. if it works and your happy great.

With things like wifi, if someone is trying to break in they may try to de-auth you to force you to attempt to login again; in the attempt to either capture your login hand-shake or worse, man-in-the-middle your/fake AP.

As such we should attempt to minimize the number of auths we do as a “soft rule”

To be fair about this, if you current wifi is not protecting you from de-auth attacks then this kinda becomes invalid; (wpa3 is meant to provide deauth protection; not sure if you are using wpa3) Depending on how busy your wifi is, adding non-needed things can make it more busy.

If we check if the connection is up (maybe a ping or dns lookup), then only do the re-connect if that fails would be a nicer fix.

1 Like

Glad to see that you found a solution, @Mark285907.

@Michael99645 raises a good point about cybersecurity that might be worth considering.

Try-except around publish

try:
    mqtt_client.publish(topic, msg)
except OSError:
    # Connection broken, reconnect and retry
    mqtt_client.connect()
    mqtt_client.publish(topic, msg)
  1. This works because publish() will raise OSError if the socket is dead.
  2. Lightweight and usually enough for small devices like Pico.
2 Likes