Multi-tenancy

Multi-tenancy in ThingsBoard enables a single platform instance to securely serve multiple tenants.

A Tenant is a top-level logical entity that represents an organizational boundary (for example, an independent business entity, company, customer segment, or business unit) and encapsulates all related IoT entities and configurations, including devices, assets, dashboards, rule chains, users, and other tenant-specific resources.

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Multi-tenancy in ThingsBoard is implemented through strict logical isolation:

• Each entity belongs to exactly one tenant.
• Permissions are enforced by role-based access control.
• Tenant Administrators cannot access resources belonging to other tenants.
• System Administrators have global visibility across all tenants.

This ensures secure tenant data isolation, even when multiple tenants operate within the same platform instance while sharing the underlying infrastructure.

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Tenants are created and managed by the system administrator.

1. Log in to ThingsBoard as a System administrator.
2. From the sidebar, navigate to Tenants.
3. Click the + Add tenant in the top right corner.
4. Enter a title.
5. Use the default tenant profile or select a different one.
6. Optionally, provide an address, phone number, contact email.
7. Click Add.

Once created, the tenant becomes available in the tenants list.

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1. From the sidebar, navigate to Tenants.
2. Click the tenant row to open its details.
3. Click the orange pencil icon (Edit) to enter edit mode.
4. Update the tenant information.
5. Apply changes.

Click the trash icon next to the tenant and confirm deleting, or open the tenant details page and click Delete tenant.

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Tenant administrator is a user with full administrative permissions who manages all tenant-scoped entities and configuration. All operations are isolated within the tenant context and do not affect other tenants in the system.

1. From the sidebar, navigate to the Tenants.
2. In the Tenants list, click Manage tenant admins for Tenant.
3. Click + Add user in the top right corner.
4. Enter the user’s email address. Optionally, provide first and last name, and phone number.
5. Choose the user activation method:
   • Display activation link — generates an activation link that you can copy and share manually.
   • Send activation mail — sends the activation link to the specified email address (requires a configured mail server).
6. Click Add.

After creation, the tenant administrator can log in and manage tenant resources.

1. From the sidebar, navigate to Tenants.
2. Click Manage tenant admins for Tenant.
3. Click the Tenant administrator row to open its details.
4. Click the orange pencil icon (Edit) to enter edit mode.
5. Update the tenant information.
6. Apply changes.

ThingsBoard allows administrators to temporarily block a user’s access to the platform without deleting the account. Disabled users cannot log in or access any tenant resources.

To enable or disable a user account:

1. From the sidebar, navigate to Tenants.
2. Click Manage tenant admins for desired Tenant.
3. Click the User row to open its details.
4. Click Enable/Disable User Account.

Click the trash icon next to the tenant administrator user and confirm the deletion, or open the user details page and click Delete user.

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System Administrators can log in as a Tenant Administrator directly from the tenants list by using the Login as tenant admin action.

This is useful for troubleshooting tenant-specific issues and verifying tenant configuration.

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To ensure stable and secure multi-tenant deployments:

• Use Tenant Profiles to enforce quotas and prevent excessive resource usage.
• Assign at least two Tenant Administrators per tenant for redundancy.
• Use consistent naming conventions for tenants and customer structures.
• Monitor message throughput and entity limits for each tenant.