Telegraf + Mosquitto: MQTT to metrics pipeline

Overview

Telegraf's MQTT consumer plugin connects to Mosquitto brokers to ingest real-time sensor data and telemetry, converting MQTT messages into structured time-series metrics.

Integration Architecture

Devices → Mosquitto Broker → Telegraf MQTT Consumer → Processors → Storage

Configuration

[[inputs.mqtt_consumer]]
  servers = ["tcp://mosquitto:1883"]
  topics = ["factory/sensors/+"]
  data_format = "json"

Use Cases

• Ingesting sensor data from IoT devices
• Bridging MQTT to time-series databases
• Real-time production line monitoring
• Environmental monitoring (temperature, humidity, pressure)

Tradeoffs & Considerations

• Telegraf handles message parsing and transformation
• Supports multiple data formats: JSON, CSV, InfluxDB Line Protocol
• Can subscribe to wildcard topics for flexible data collection