layout: page

title: "OwnTracks with two MQTT brokers"

description: "Setting up OwnTracks with 2 MQTT brokers bridged for use with the MQTT bridge for SmartThings."

date: 2016-08-27 10:05

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ha_category: Infrastructure

I ([surge919](https://github.com/surge919)) successfully tied in [OwnTracks](http://owntracks.org/) to Home Assistant and [SmartThings](https://www.smartthings.com/) while using authentication for external access. The MQTT bridge doesn't support authentication so I set up 2 MQTT instances.

Here are the steps I performed. Hopefully it saves someone else some time.

It seems to be working pretty well but if anyone sees something incorrect in my configuration, please let me know. This is my first real interaction with MQTT.

Here's a summary of my setup:

Two Docker instances for MQTT

- 1 for internal use (the MQTT bridge for SmartThings - no authentication)

- 1 for external use (for OwnTracks - with authentication)

All Docker configuration files are on my NAS so the Docker containers can be destroyed without affecting my actual configuration files.

$ docker run -ti -p 1883:1883 \

-v /volume1/data/mosquitto-int/config:/mqtt/config:ro \

-v /volume1/data/mosquitto-int/log:/mqtt/log \

-v /volume1/data/mosquitto-int/data/:/mqtt/data/ \

--name mosquitto-int -d toke/mosquitto

$ docker run -ti -p 1884:1883 \

-v /volume1/data/mosquitto-ext/config:/mqtt/config:ro \

-v /volume1/data/mosquitto-ext/log:/mqtt/log \

-v /volume1/data/mosquitto-ext/data/:/mqtt/data/ \

-v /volume1/data/mosquitto-ext/etc:/etc/mosquitto \

--name mosquitto-ext -d toke/mosquitto

Here are the config files:

connection mosquitto-ext

persistence_file mosquitto.db

try_private true

address 10.0.0.20:1884

start_type automatic

sername test

password test

notifications true

topic owntracks/# in

log_type all

log_dest file /mqtt/log/mqtt.log

log_facility 5

connection mosquitto-int

persistence_file mosquitto.db

try_private true

address 10.0.0.20:1883

start_type automatic

username test

password test

notifications true

topic owntracks/# out

log_type all

log_dest file /mqtt/log/mqtt.log

log_facility 5

allow_anonymous false

password_file /etc/mosquitto/pwfile

Create a password for `mosquitto-ext`

$ docker exec -it mosquitto-ext /bin/bash

$ cd /etc/mosquitto/

$ mosquitto_passwd -c /etc/mosquitto/pwfile <userID>

Preferences / Connection / Mode - Private MQTT

Fill out

Host

Identification

Security: TLS disabled

<img src="//community-home-assistant-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/original/2X/5/5ce27145e5b37bac72859e4c36b8269d14f85ce1.png" width="649" height="500">