How to control ESP8266 through external server?

Question

Arduino

There are 3 homemade smart sockets made on the basis of esp8266 (PSU + esp + relay). I want to do management through an external VDS server. You want the server to send on and off commands to each outlet individually. This is necessary for the sockets to work according to the schedule, and for control through the TG bot. I write code in Python.
How to send commands to esp8266 from external server?

Answer 1

Use mqtt - this protocol is optimal for this task.
The implementation for most popular languages ​​is easily googled.
tasmota or other firmware (on esp8266) ---> mqtt ---> server

┌───────────────┐                     ┌───────────────┐
│               │        MQTT         │               │
│    esp8266    └─────────────────────►  server       │
│               ◄─────────────────────┐               │
└───────────────┘                     └───────────────┘