MQTT stateless and stateful sessions

MQTT clients can create a stateful session with the queue manager. When a stateful MQTT client disconnects, the queue manager maintains the subscriptions created by the client, and in-flight messages. When the client reconnects, it resolves in-flight message. It sends any messages that are queued for delivery, and receives any messages published for its subscriptions while it was disconnected.

When an MQTT client connects to a telemetry channel it either starts a new session, or resumes an old session. A new session has no outstanding messages that have not been acknowledged, no subscriptions, and no publications awaiting delivery. When a client connects, it specifies whether to start with a clean session, or to resume an existing session; see Clean sessions.

If the client resumes an existing session, it continues as if the connection had not been broken. Publications awaiting delivery are sent to the client, and any message transfers that had not been committed, are completed. When a client in a persistent session disconnects from the telemetry (MQXR) service, any subscriptions the client created remain. Publications for the subscriptions are sent to the client when it reconnects. If it reconnects without resuming the old session, the publications are discarded by the telemetry (MQXR) service.

Session state information is saved by the queue manager in the SYSTEM.MQTT.PERSISTENT.STATE queue.

The IBM® MQ administrator can disconnect and purge a session.