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.\"     Title: mosquitto
.\"    Author: [see the "Author" section]
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets vsnapshot <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: 03/26/2026
.\"    Manual: Conventions and miscellaneous
.\"    Source: Mosquitto Project
.\"  Language: English
.\"
.TH "MOSQUITTO" "7" "03/26/2026" "Mosquitto Project" "Conventions and miscellaneous"
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.SH "NAME"
mosquitto \- Project overview
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
The mosquitto project contains MQTT related programs, and comprises the mosquitto broker and applications, command line clients, and a client library for implementing custom MQTT clients\&. A brief description of some MQTT features is available at
\fBmqtt\fR(7)\&.
.PP
Mosquitto is an
\m[blue]\fBEclipse Foundation project\fR\m[], part of the
\m[blue]\fBIoT top level project\fR\m[]\&.
.PP
The project home page is at
\m[blue]\fBmosquitto\&.org\fR\m[], the github project is at
\m[blue]\fBgithub\&.com/eclipse\-mosquitto/mosquitto\fR\m[], and the project provides a public MQTT test broker available at
\m[blue]\fBtest\&.mosquitto\&.org\fR\m[]\&.
.PP
Development is driven by
\m[blue]\fBCedalo\fR\m[], who also provide professional support and enterprise features for mosquitto\&.
.SH "MOSQUITTO BROKER"
.PP
The mosquitto broker is the core of the project\&. Details on starting the broker, MQTT support, and feature descriptions can be found in
\fBmosquitto\fR(8)\&. A full description of the configuration file format can be found in
\fBmosquitto.conf\fR(5)\&.
.SH "MOSQUITTO BROKER APPLICATIONS"
.PP
These command line applications directly support the running of the mosquitto broker\&.
.SS "mosquitto_ctrl"
.PP
This can be used to interact with the broker MQTT APIs when the broker is running\&. It can run in batch mode, where all arguments are provided on the command line, or from version 2\&.1 onwards, in an interactive shell mode\&.
.PP
The batch mode is described in
\fBmosquitto_ctrl\fR(1), with the Dynamic Security module described in
\fBmosquitto_ctrl_dynsec\fR(1)\&.
.PP
The interactive shell mode is described in
\fBmosquitto_ctrl_shell\fR(1)\&.
.SS "mosquitto_passwd"
.PP
This tool is used to generate and modify password files that can be used with the
\fBmosquitto_password_file\fR
plugin or
\fBpassword_file\fR
configuration option\&. It is described in
\fBmosquitto_passwd\fR(1)\&.
.SS "mosquitto_signal"
.PP
Available from version 2\&.1\&.
.PP
This tool is used to send signals to the broker\&. On POSIX systems it performs the same task as the
\fBkill\fR
command, but with named signals\&. On Windows it is the only method of sending signals to the broker\&. It is described in
\fBmosquitto_signal\fR(1)\&.
.SH "MOSQUITTO MQTT COMMAND LINE CLIENTS"
.PP
These command line tools act as MQTT clients and can be useful for testing and automation of tasks related to any MQTT broker\&.
.SS "mosquitto_pub"
.PP
This client can publish messages to a broker\&. It supports sending simple messages from the command line, reading from stdin, and sending files\&. It is described at
\fBmosquitto_pub\fR(1)\&.
.SS "mosquitto_rr"
.PP
This client operates in a request/response style by sending a single message to a broker and waiting for a response on another topic\&. Request/response support is an MQTT v5\&.0 feature, but it is not required most cases for this client\&. It is described at
\fBmosquitto_rr\fR(1)\&.
.SS "mosquitto_sub"
.PP
This client subscribes to topics on the broker and prints messages that it receives\&. It has a wide variety of output options\&. It is described at
\fBmosquitto_sub\fR(1)\&.
.SH "MOSQUITTO CLIENT LIBRARY"
.PP
The Mosquitto client library is described at
\fBlibmosquitto\fR(3)\&.
.SH "AUTHOR"
.PP
Roger Light
<roger@atchoo\&.org>