Hi, I want to create a single channel gateway using an esp32 with sx1276 on a non-secure wifi environment, and it looks like the communication between packet-forwarder and gateway-bridge must be secured. Do I need to implement gateway-bridge on esp32, or can I write directly into mqtt’s gateways topics?
That’s a rather bad idea
Quite likely a worse one still. Ironically you may have better luck with an ESP8266 where the timing issues are better understood
it looks like the communication between packet-forwarder and gateway-bridge must be secured.
That wouldn’t be a bad idea from a security perspective, but it’s not required from a functional one if you are willing to take the risk and you configure the MQTT broker to operate on unsecured ports.
Do I need to implement gateway-bridge on esp32, or can I write directly into mqtt’s gateways topics?
You could indeed produce the same type of MQTT traffic that the gateway bridge does.
Or you could implement the simpler semtech UDP protocol, and run the gateway bridge wherever you run the server.
Given how severe the issues with single channel gateways are, its probably not worth putting effort into anything more than the UDP protocol. If or when you upgrade to something with an 8-channel concentrator, then modernizing the software stack might start to be worth the effort.
Also if you do decide to re-implement your own generation of the MQTT json (or now protobuf) output like the gateway bridge does, having a traffic source sending data into a running copy of the gateway bridge via UDP will give you examples of the goal that you can compare.
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