Getting started

Development

You can run the services with

docker compose -f docker-compose.local.yaml up --build

• --build to build the images locally
• Make sure you've create the Thingsboard volumes first: docker volume create mytb-data && docker volume create mytb-logs.
• Hint: add -V to renew volumes if you update node packages (e.g., in frontend, stapi-backend, or strapi-backend/src/plugins/thingsboard-plugin).
• Hint: manage env variables in the .local.env; .env files in e.g. strapi-backend/.env will override the docker variables.

To use images from GiHub's container registry (ghcr.io), run docker login with the proper access token. You'll need a Classic Token with at least read:packages.

export CR_PAT=YOUR_TOKEN
echo $CR_PAT | docker login ghcr.io -u USERNAME --password-stdin

Setting things up

Default addresses for local development:

• Portal: http://localhost:3000
• Strapi: http://localhost:1337
• Platform (Thingsboard): http://localhost:9090
  • Swagger UI: http://localhost:9090/swagger-ui/

Strapi includes the Strapi CMS UI, plugins (strapi-backend/src/plugins/thingsboard-plugin), and, in our case, comes with a dedicated Postgres. The platform comes with default users user:password [email protected]:sysadmin for the default admin with admin UI access and [email protected]:tenant for the default tenant.

Strapi

• Make sure to set all roles and permissions for Authenticated and Public users under http://localhost:1337/admin/settings/users-permissions/roles. This can include all find and findOne permissions across all routes and all permissions for the Thingsboard-plugin route.
• When adding plugin routes, as for the Thingsboard-plugin, ensure that each custom controller action (e.g., exportTelemetry, etc.) is explicitly allowed for the relevant user roles — otherwise, Strapi will return a 403 Forbidden silently even if the route and token are valid.

Portal Users

• New users can register by clicking Jetzt registrieren on the login page. Or directly navigate to http://localhost:3000/signup/.
• Each newly registered user receives a Tenant account in the Thingsboard platform.
• Portal users are able to test, i.e. deploy, Anwendungsfälle. Deployed Anwendungsfälle (use cases) then list, i.e. display, all connected Thingsboard dashboards and devices in the user's portal.

Creating a Use Case

• Create and publish a Use Case in the Strapi Admin Dashboard. You need to be logged in as admin.
• Select a Device Profile of the (Thingsboard) Tenant which should be the Use-Case owner. By default, you can use the tenant named Tenant. All Thingsboard assets in a use case must be owned by the same Thingboard Tenant.
• Fill out the mandatory fields.
• Add a Device Profile and all linked assets to this Device Profile -- for the chosen Use Case owner Tenant. That is, this can include a Rule Chain. If linked assets are missing, the deployment of the Use Case will fail for users.
• Under setupSteps, add the setupInstruction. Under thingsboard_profile, you must add the very same Device Profile which was selected earlier.

Deploying Use Cases

• A Use Case is deployed if a user fulfills all Anwendungsfall einrichten steps in the Portal. Use Cases are deployed by creating a copy of all Use Case assets into the user's Thingsboard tenant account.

Thingsboard database

Thingsboard uses a Postgres internally. To connect to it on localhost, run:

docker exec -it mytb bash -c "echo \"listen_addresses = '*'\" >> /data/db/postgresql.conf"
docker exec -it mytb bash -c "echo \"host    all    all    0.0.0.0/0    md5\" >> /data/db/pg_hba.conf"
docker exec mytb psql -U thingsboard -c "ALTER USER thingsboard WITH PASSWORD 'postgres';"

Where thingsboard:postgres is the default user:password (for some reason, it has to be re-applied manually).