XMPP Connector Configuration

• Connector configuration: xmpp.json
  • Section “server”
  • Section “devices”
    • Device subsection
    • Attribute updates subsection
    • Server side RPC subsection
• Next steps

This guide will help you get familiar with XMPP Connector configuration for ThingsBoard IoT Gateway. Use general configuration to enable this Connector. The purpose of this connector is to collect data from IoT devices using XMPP protocol.

We will describe the connector configuration file below.

Connector configuration: xmpp.json

Connector configuration is a JSON file that contains information about how to connect to devices, process the data, and other service features. Let’s review the format of the configuration file using the example below.

Example of XMPP Connector config file.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
{
  "server": {
    "jid": "gateway@localhost",
    "password": "password",
    "host": "localhost",
    "port": 5222,
    "use_ssl": false,
    "disable_starttls": false,
    "force_starttls": true,
    "timeout": 10000,
    "plugins": [
      "xep_0030",
      "xep_0323",
      "xep_0325"
    ]
  },
  "devices": [
    {
      "jid": "device@localhost/TMP_1101",
      "deviceNameExpression": "${serialNumber}",
      "deviceTypeExpression": "default",
      "attributes": [
        {
          "key": "temperature",
          "value": "${temp}"
        }
      ],
      "timeseries": [
        {
          "key": "humidity",
          "value": "${hum}"
        },
        {
          "key": "combination",
          "value": "${temp}:${hum}"
        }
      ],
      "attributeUpdates": [
        {
          "attributeOnThingsBoard": "shared",
          "valueExpression": "{\"${attributeKey}\":\"${attributeValue}\"}"
        }
      ],
      "serverSideRpc": [
        {
          "methodRPC": "rpc1",
          "withResponse": true,
          "valueExpression": "${params}"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Section “server”

This configuration section is used to configure Gateway XMPP device and connection to XMPP server.

Configuration section will look like this:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
{
  "server": {
    "jid": "gateway@localhost",
    "password": "password",
    "host": "localhost",
    "port": 5222,
    "use_ssl": false,
    "disable_starttls": false,
    "force_starttls": true,
    "timeout": 10000,
    "plugins": [
      "xep_0030",
      "xep_0323",
      "xep_0325"
    ]
  }
}

Section “devices”

This configuration section contains an array of devices that can be connected to the connector and send the data. It means that the connector rejects all device connections not included in this array based on their JID.

Device subsection

This object configuration section includes the parameters for processing incoming data.

Example:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
{
  "jid": "device@localhost/TMP_1101",
  "deviceNameExpression": "${serialNumber}",
  "deviceTypeExpression": "default",
  "attributes": [
    {
      "key": "temperature",
      "value": "${temp}"
    }
  ],
  "timeseries": [
    {
      "key": "humidity",
      "value": "${hum}"
    },
    {
      "key": "combination",
      "value": "${temp}:${hum}"
    }
  ]
}

Attribute updates subsection

This configuration section is optional. ThingsBoard allows the provisioning of device attributes and fetches some of them from the device application. You can treat this as a remote configuration for devices, enabling them to request shared attributes from ThingsBoard. See user guide for more details.

The “attributeUpdates” configuration allows you to configure the format of the corresponding attribute data that will be sent to the XMPP device.

This section in configuration file looks like:

1
2
3
4
5
6
"attributeUpdates": [
  {
    "attributeOnThingsBoard": "shared",
    "valueExpression": "{\"${attributeKey}\":\"${attributeValue}\"}"
  }
]

Server side RPC subsection

ThingsBoard allows sending RPC commands to the device connected to ThingsBoard directly or via Gateway.

Configuration, provided in this section is used for sending RPC requests from ThingsBoard to the device.

This subsection in configuration file looks like:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
"serverSideRpc": [
  {
    "methodRPC": "rpc1",
    "withResponse": true,
    "valueExpression": "${params}"
  }
]

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.