IoT Stack (Node-RED, Mosquitto, InfluxDB, Grafana) on Ubuntu 24.04

Overview

This is a ready to use Internet of Things appliance that bundles four open source tools into one working pipeline. Eclipse Mosquitto is the MQTT broker that devices connect to and publish their readings into. Node-RED is the flow based low code engine that receives those readings, parses and reshapes them, and routes them onward. InfluxDB 2 is the time series database that stores every reading as a point on a timeline. Grafana is the dashboard platform that turns those stored series into live charts.

What makes it an appliance rather than four packages is that the path between them is already built. Node-RED ships with a flow that subscribes to the broker, converts incoming JSON readings into InfluxDB line protocol and writes them to the database, and Grafana ships with the InfluxDB data source and a starter telemetry dashboard already provisioned against the same bucket. Publish a reading from any MQTT client and it travels broker to flow to database to chart without you configuring a single connection. From there the flow editor is the place you extend the pipeline: add device specific parsing, alerting, filtering or extra destinations, using the same drag and drop editor the demo flow is built in.

Common uses

• Collect device and sensor telemetry over MQTT and chart it live
• Prototype an IoT data pipeline without wiring four services together
• Run a self contained edge or site gateway that stores and visualises its own readings

See it running

Real screenshots taken while testing this image against its deployment guide.