Ignition integrates with Mosquitto

Ignition and Mosquitto form a complete IIoT connectivity stack. Mosquitto provides the lightweight MQTT broker infrastructure while Ignition's Cirrus Link MQTT modules enable bidirectional communication between industrial devices and enterprise systems.

Integration architecture

The typical deployment pattern uses:

• Mosquitto as the MQTT broker running on edge gateways or central servers
• Ignition MQTT Transmission module on edge devices to publish local tag changes as MQTT messages
• Ignition MQTT Engine module on central Ignition servers to subscribe to topics and ingest data
• Sparkplug B payload format for structured, self-discoverable industrial data

Use cases

• Edge-to-enterprise data flow: Field devices publish to local Mosquitto broker; Ignition aggregates and forwards to cloud
• Unidirectional data diode: MQTT Transmission publishes outward without exposing control networks
• Store-and-forward: Mosquitto queues messages during network outages; Ignition processes backlog on reconnection
• Multi-site aggregation: Mosquitto brokers at each facility; central Ignition subscribes to all locations

Configuration overview

1. Install and configure Mosquitto broker (authentication, TLS certificates, topic ACLs)
2. Install Cirrus Link MQTT Transmission on edge Ignition gateways
3. Configure Transmission to publish tag changes to Mosquitto topics
4. Install Cirrus Link MQTT Engine on central Ignition server
5. Configure Engine to subscribe to Mosquitto topics and map payloads to Ignition tags

Tradeoffs and considerations

• Module cost: Cirrus Link MQTT modules are additional purchases beyond Ignition platform license
• Broker management: Mosquitto requires separate administration (upgrades, security patches, clustering for HA)
• Payload design: Sparkplug B provides structure but requires upfront topic namespace design
• Debugging complexity: Distributed architecture with two moving parts can complicate troubleshooting