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Setup Guide

This guide walks you through setting up a Solace PubSub+ broker and obtaining the connection details required to use the Solace connector.

Prerequisites​

  • A Solace PubSub+ broker instance. You can use Solace Cloud (free tier available) or run a self-hosted broker via Docker.

Step 1: Set up a Solace pubSub+ broker​

Option A: Solace Cloud (managed service):

  1. Sign up at console.solace.cloud.
  2. Create a new messaging service (select the free plan for development).
  3. Wait for the service to be provisioned.

Option B: Docker (self-hosted):

  1. Run the Solace PubSub+ Standard Edition container:

    docker run -d -p 8080:8080 -p 55555:55555 -p 55003:55003 -p 55443:55443 \
      --shm-size=2g --env username_admin_globalaccesslevel=admin \
      --env username_admin_password=admin \
      --name=solace solace/solace-pubsub-standard

  2. Access the management console at http://localhost:8080.

tip

The Docker image exposes port 55555 for SMF (plain text) and 55443 for SMF over TLS.

Step 2: Create a message VPN​

  1. Log in to the Solace management console (PubSub+ Manager).
  2. Navigate to Message VPNs and click + Create Message VPN.
  3. Enter a VPN name (e.g., my-vpn) and configure the basic settings.
  4. Enable the SMF service and note the assigned port.
  5. Click Apply to create the VPN.
note

The default VPN named default is pre-configured and ready to use for development. You can skip this step if using the default VPN.

Step 3: Create a client username​

  1. In PubSub+ Manager, navigate to your Message VPN.
  2. Go to Access Control > Client Usernames.
  3. Click + Client Username and enter a username.
  4. Set a password for the client username.
  5. Enable the client username and click Apply.

Step 4: Create queues and topics​

  1. In PubSub+ Manager, navigate to your Message VPN.
  2. Go to Queues and click + Queue to create a new queue.
  3. Enter a queue name (e.g., my-queue) and configure settings such as max message size and access type.
  4. To subscribe a queue to a topic, select the queue and add a topic subscription under Subscriptions.
  5. Click Apply to save.
tip

For topic-based publish/subscribe without queues, no queue creation is needed: topics are created dynamically when a subscriber connects.

Step 5: Obtain connection details​

Gather the following details for your Ballerina connector configuration:

  1. Broker URL: The SMF connection URL in the format smf://<host>:<port> (or smfs://<host>:<port> for TLS). For Solace Cloud, find this under Connect > Solace Messaging in the service details.
  2. Message VPN: The VPN name (e.g., default or the one you created).
  3. Client Username: The username created in the previous step.
  4. Client Password: The password for the client username.
tip

For Solace Cloud, connection details including the SMF host, port, and credentials are available on the service's Connect tab.