Installation and Migration

This chapter walks you through the basic installation steps for EMQX, the minimum hardware specification, and the file and directory locations to facilitate future configuration and maintenance jobs. It also covers how to configure a license for EMQX Enterprise and migrate from EMQX 4.4 to EMQX 5.1.

Supported Operating Systems

The table below lists the operating systems and versions that EMQX supports.

Operating system	Versions supported	x86_64/amd64	arm64
Ubuntu	Ubuntu 18.04 Ubuntu 20.04 Ubuntu 22.04 Ubuntu 24.04	Yes	Yes
Debian	Debian 10 Debian 11 Debian 12	Yes	Yes
CentOS/RHEL	CentOS 7 Rocky Linux 8 Rocky Linux 9	Yes	Yes
Amazon Linux	Amazon Linux 2 Amazon Linux 2023	Yes	Yes
macOS	macOS 13 macOS 14	Yes	Yes

Installation Environment

The Erlang VM powering EMQX relies on system locale settings to enable Unicode support for various functionalities, including filenames and terminal IO in interactive Erlang shells.

If you use the Linux operating system, it is recommended to make sure that UTF-8 locale is enabled in the system environment before starting EMQX. Click the tabs to see how to enable the UTF-8 locale on different platforms:

Enable the UTF-8 locale with cloud-init configuration:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99_locale.cfg
#cloud-config
locale: C.utf8
EOF

It is usually enabled by localectl under systemd:

sudo localectl set-locale LANG=C.UTF-8

Enable the UTF-8 locale in two ways:

• It is usually enabled by localectl under systemd:

  sudo localectl set-locale LANG=C.UTF-8

• Otherwise, it can be enabled with update-locale.

  sudo update-locale LANG=C.UTF-8

Enable the UTF-8 locale with update-locale:

sudo update-locale LANG=C.UTF-8

Port Usage

EMQX uses the following ports by default. Ensure these ports are not occupied by other applications, and open the firewall as needed to ensure EMQX runs properly.

Port	Protocol	Description
1883	TCP	MQTT over TCP listener port, mainly used for unencrypted MQTT connections.
8883	TCP	MQTT over SSL/TLS listener port for encrypted MQTT connections.
8083	TCP	MQTT over WebSocket listener port for MQTT communication over WebSocket.
8084	TCP	MQTT over WSS (WebSocket over SSL) listener port for encrypted WebSocket connections.
18083	HTTP	EMQX Dashboard and REST API port for management console and API interfaces.
4370	TCP	Erlang distribution port, the actual port may be BasePort (4370) + Offset depending on the node name.
5370	TCP	Cluster RPC port (5369 in Docker environment), the actual port may be BasePort (5370) + Offset depending on the node name.

Note

Even if a cluster is not formed, EMQX will still listen on ports 4370 and 5370. These two ports are fixed and cannot be modified. The Offset is determined by the numeric suffix of the Name part in the node name (Name@Host). If there is no numeric suffix, the default is 0. For more information, refer to Port Mapping.

Files and Directories

After installation, EMQX creates some directories to store running and configuration files, data, and logs. The table below lists the directories created and their file path under different installation methods:

Directory	Description	Installed with tar.gz	Installed with RPM/DEB
etc	Static config files	./etc	/etc/emqx
data	Database and config	./data	/var/lib/emqx
log	Log files	./log	/var/log/emqx
releases	Boot instructions	./releases	/usr/lib/emqx/releases
bin	Executables	./bin	/usr/lib/emqx/bin
lib	Erlang code	./lib	/usr/lib/emqx/lib
erts-*	Erlang runtime	./erts-*	/usr/lib/emqx/erts-*
plugins	Plugins	./plugins	/usr/lib/emqx/plugins

TIP

1. When installed with the compressed package, the directory is relative to the directory where the software is installed.
2. When installed with Docker container, EMQX is installed in the /opt/emqx directory.
3. The data, log, and plugins directories are configurable via the configuration files. Mounting the data directory to a high-performance disk is recommended for better performance. For nodes belonging to the same cluster, the configuration for the data directory should be the same. For more information about clusters, see Cluster.

The table below introduces the files and subfolders of some directories.

Directory	Description	Permissions	Files
bin	Executables	Read	emqx and emqx.cmd: Executables of EMQX. For details, see Command Line Interface.
etc	Configuration files	Read	emqx.conf: Main configuration file for EMQX, contains all the commonly-used configuration items. emqx-example-en.conf: Demo configuration files of EMQX, contains all the configurable items. acl.conf: Default ACl rules. vm.args: Operating parameters of the Erlang virtual machine. certs/: X.509 keys and certificate files for EMQX SSL listeners, may also be used in the SSL/TLS connection when integrating with external systems.
data	Operating data	Write	authz: Stores file authorization rules uploaded by REST API or Dashboard. For details, see Authorization - File. certs: Stores certificate files uploaded by REST API or Dashboard. configs: Stores configuration files generated at boot, or configuration overrides by changes from API or CLI. mnesia: Built-in database to store EMQX operating data, including alarm records, authentication and authorization data of the clients, Dashboard user information, etc. If the directory is deleted, all these operating data will be lost. — May contain subdirectories named after different node, e.g., emqx@127.0.0.1. Note: In case of node renaming, you should also delete or remove the corresponding subdirectory. — Can use command emqx ctl mnesia to query the built-in database. For details, see Management Command CLI. patches: Stores the .beam files for EMQX to load as a hot patch. Can be used for a quick fix. trace: Online tracing log files. In production, it is recommended to periodically backup the data directory (excluding the trace folder ) for data safety.
log	Operating logs	Read	emqx.log.*: Operation logs of EMQX, for more information, see logs.

TIP

EMQX stores the configuration information in the data/configs and the etc directory. The etc directory stores read-only configuration files, while configuration updates from the Dashboard or REST API are saved in the data/configs directory to support hot configuration reloads at runtime.

• etc/emqx.conf
• data/configs/cluster.hocon

EMQX reads the configuration items from these files and converts them to the Erlang native configuration file format, to apply the configurations at runtime.