This guide will help you to enable a remote shell feature and control the operating system with ThingsBoard IoT Gateway from your ThingsBoard platform instance. With this functionality, you can access the underlying machine, execute commands, and perform maintenance tasks directly from the platform. It provides a convenient way to monitor system health, troubleshoot issues, and automate administrative operations without needing direct physical access. Before proceeding, ensure that you have the necessary permissions and have configured your gateway according to the prerequisites outlined in this documentation.
WARNING: This feature may introduce security vulnerabilities. It is strongly recommended to use SSL encryption when enabling it, and to keep it disabled unless required.
Prerequisites
- Ensure that the ThingsBoard server is up and running. The simplest approach is to utilize the Live Demo or ThingsBoard Cloud. Alternatively, you can install ThingsBoard manually by following the steps outlined in the Installation Guide.
- Installed and configured ThingsBoard IoT Gateway (Installation guide, Getting Started).
Step 1. Remote shell activation
To enable the remote shell feature, configure the corresponding parameter in the Gateway UI using the following steps:
-
Go to the Entities > Gateways tab and click on the desired gateway.
-
Click on the “General configuration” button on the right panel.
-
In the opened window, navigate to the General tab and enable the “Remote shell” option. Click on the “Save” button to apply the changes.
Go to the Entities > Gateways tab and click on the desired gateway.
Click on the “General configuration” button on the right panel.
In the opened window, navigate to the General tab and enable the “Remote shell” option. Click on the “Save” button to apply the changes.
Step 2. Try out the remote shell
To navigate to the remote shell, follow these steps:
-
On the selected gateway page, click on the “Remote shell” button on the right panel.
-
Now you can see the shell interface (connection setups automatically).
On the selected gateway page, click on the “Remote shell” button on the right panel.
Now you can see the shell interface (connection setups automatically).
For example, we run ls command to get the list of files and directories in the current directory:
Next steps
Explore guides related to main ThingsBoard features:
- Data Visualization - how to visualize collected data.
- Device attributes - how to use device attributes.
- Telemetry data collection - how to collect telemetry data.
- Using RPC capabilities - how to send commands to/from devices.
- Rule Engine - how to use rule engine to analyze data from devices.