Installing ThingsBoard CE on Raspberry Pi

This guide walks you through installing ThingsBoard Community Edition on a Raspberry Pi.

• Raspberry Pi with at least 4 GB of RAM
• Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit recommended)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y openjdk-17-jdk

Set Java 17 as the default version:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

Verify the installation:

java -version

Download the installation package:

wget https://github.com/thingsboard/thingsboard/releases/download/v4.3.1.1/thingsboard-4.3.1.1.deb

Install ThingsBoard as a service:

sudo dpkg -i thingsboard-4.3.1.1.deb

Install PostgreSQL 16:

sudo apt install -y postgresql-common
sudo /usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg/apt.postgresql.org.sh
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install postgresql-16
sudo service postgresql start

Set a password for the postgres user:

sudo -u postgres psql -c "\password"

Enter and confirm the password when prompted. Connect to PostgreSQL and create the ThingsBoard database:

psql -U postgres -d postgres -h 127.0.0.1 -W

CREATE DATABASE thingsboard;

Press Ctrl+D twice to exit.

Configure ThingsBoard to use PostgreSQL. Edit the configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/thingsboard/conf/thingsboard.conf

Add the following lines. Replace PUT_YOUR_POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HERE with your actual postgres password:

# DB Configuration
export DATABASE_TS_TYPE=sql
export SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/thingsboard
export SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME=postgres
export SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD=PUT_YOUR_POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HERE

ThingsBoard uses a message broker for internal communication between services. Choose one of the options below:

• In Memory — built-in, default. Suitable for development and PoC environments. Not recommended for production or cluster deployments.
• Confluent Cloud — fully managed streaming platform based on Kafka. Useful for cloud-agnostic deployments.

sudo nano /etc/thingsboard/conf/thingsboard.conf

export TB_QUEUE_TYPE=kafka
export TB_QUEUE_KAFKA_USE_CONFLUENT_CLOUD=true
export TB_KAFKA_SERVERS=localhost:9092
export TB_QUEUE_KAFKA_REPLICATION_FACTOR=3
export TB_QUEUE_KAFKA_CONFLUENT_SASL_JAAS_CONFIG='org.apache.kafka.common.security.plain.PlainLoginModule required username="CLUSTER_API_KEY" password="CLUSTER_API_SECRET";'
export TB_QUEUE_CORE_POLL_INTERVAL_MS=1000
export TB_QUEUE_CORE_PARTITIONS=2
export TB_QUEUE_RULE_ENGINE_POLL_INTERVAL_MS=1000
export TB_QUEUE_TRANSPORT_REQUEST_POLL_INTERVAL_MS=1000
export TB_QUEUE_TRANSPORT_RESPONSE_POLL_INTERVAL_MS=1000
export TB_QUEUE_TRANSPORT_NOTIFICATIONS_POLL_INTERVAL_MS=1000
export TB_QUEUE_VC_INTERVAL_MS=1000
export TB_QUEUE_VC_PARTITIONS=1

Raspberry Pi devices typically have limited RAM. Edit the ThingsBoard configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/thingsboard/conf/thingsboard.conf

Add or update the following environment variable. Set the value to half of your total RAM (e.g. 2G for a 4 GB Raspberry Pi):

export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Xms2G -Xmx2G"

sudo /usr/share/thingsboard/bin/install/install.sh --loadDemo

sudo service thingsboard start

Once started, open http://localhost:8080 in your browser. You should see the ThingsBoard login page. Use the following default credentials:

• System Administrator: [email protected] / sysadmin
• Tenant Administrator: [email protected] / tenant
• Customer User: [email protected] / customer

You can change passwords for each account in the account profile page.

See Getting Started for your next steps after login.

The upgrade procedure for Raspberry Pi is identical to the Ubuntu instructions.

See the Upgrade Instructions for detailed steps.

ThingsBoard logs are stored in /var/log/thingsboard. Check for errors with:

cat /var/log/thingsboard/thingsboard.log | grep ERROR