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ThingsBoard Cloud

Choose your data region

Your data stays in the region you choose, for residency and compliance. No credit card required.

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Rather run it yourself? Install on your own servers

RPC

Subscribe to Server-Side RPC Commands

Section titled “Subscribe to Server-Side RPC Commands”

Subscribe to the RPC topic to receive commands targeted at downstream devices.

Topic: v1/gateway/rpc (subscribe + publish)

Replace GATEWAY_DEVICE_ACCESS_TOKEN in the commands below with the gateway device’s access token.

Terminal window
mosquitto_sub -h "mqtt.eu.thingsboard.cloud" -t "v1/gateway/rpc" -u "GATEWAY_DEVICE_ACCESS_TOKEN"

Incoming command format:

{
  "device": "Device A",
  "data": {"id": 1, "method": "toggle_gpio", "params": {"pin": 1}}
}
Field Description
device The target device name
data.id Request identifier — must be echoed in the reply
data.method RPC method name
data.params Method parameters (arbitrary JSON)

Send RPC Reply

Section titled “Send RPC Reply”

Send the reply to the same topic:

{"device": "Device A", "id": 1, "data": {"success": true}}
Terminal window
mosquitto_pub -h "mqtt.eu.thingsboard.cloud" -t "v1/gateway/rpc" -u "GATEWAY_DEVICE_ACCESS_TOKEN" -m '{"device":"Device A","id":1,"data":{"success":true}}'

Persistent RPC States

Section titled “Persistent RPC States”

For a persistent RPC to a device behind the gateway, the gateway’s handling of the command sets the RPC state:

Gateway RPC state
Acknowledges the command, with a QoS 1 subscription to v1/gateway/rpc DELIVERED
Has a QoS 0 subscription to v1/gateway/rpc DELIVERED as soon as ThingsBoard sends the command
Replies with the same id before the RPC timeout SUCCESSFUL, two-way RPC only
Doesn’t reply before the RPC timeout EXPIRED, two-way RPC only

A one-way RPC ends at DELIVERED, and a reply to it isn’t processed. To receive the reply, send a two-way RPC with a timeout longer than the time the device takes to respond through the gateway.