Installing ThingsBoard PE on Raspberry Pi

This guide walks you through installing ThingsBoard Professional 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://dist.thingsboard.io/thingsboard-4.3.1.1PE.deb

Install ThingsBoard as a service:

sudo dpkg -i thingsboard-4.3.1.1PE.deb

We assume you have already chosen your subscription plan or decided to purchase a perpetual license. If not, navigate to the pricing page to select the best license option for your case. See How to get a pay-as-you-go subscription or How to get a perpetual license for details.

Once you have the license secret, add it to the ThingsBoard configuration file:

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

Locate the following block:

# License secret obtained from ThingsBoard License Portal (https://license.thingsboard.io)
# UNCOMMENT NEXT LINE AND PUT YOUR LICENSE SECRET:
# export TB_LICENSE_SECRET=

Uncomment the export statement and add your license secret:

export TB_LICENSE_SECRET=YOUR_LICENSE_SECRET_HERE

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 WebReport service generates PDF and PNG reports from dashboards. Choose one of the installation methods below:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh

nano tb-web-report.yml

version: '3.0'
services:
  tb-web-report:
    container_name: tb-web-report
    restart: always
    image: "thingsboard/tb-pe-web-report:4.3.1.1PE"
    ports:
      - "8383:8383"
    env_file:
      - ./tb-web-report.env

nano tb-web-report.env

HTTP_BIND_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0
HTTP_BIND_PORT=8383
LOGGER_LEVEL=info
LOG_FOLDER=logs
LOGGER_FILENAME=tb-web-report-%DATE%.log
DOCKER_MODE=true
DEFAULT_PAGE_NAVIGATION_TIMEOUT=120000
DASHBOARD_LOAD_WAIT_TIME=3000
USE_NEW_PAGE_FOR_REPORT=true

docker compose -f tb-web-report.yml up -d

docker logs -f tb-web-report

wget https://dist.thingsboard.io/tb-web-report-4.3.1.1PE.deb

sudo apt install -yq libatk1.0-0 libc6 libcairo2 libcups2 libdbus-1-3 \
     libexpat1 libfontconfig1 libgcc1 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libglib2.0-0 libgtk-3-0 libnspr4 \
     libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0 libstdc++6 libx11-6 libx11-xcb1 libxcb1 libxcomposite1 \
     libxcursor1 libxdamage1 libxext6 libxfixes3 libxi6 libxrandr2 libxrender1 libxss1 libxtst6 \
     ca-certificates fonts-liberation libnss3 lsb-release xdg-utils unzip wget libgbm-dev

sudo apt install -y fonts-roboto

sudo dpkg -i tb-web-report-4.3.1.1PE.deb
sudo service tb-web-report start

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