Documentation

FCM Notifications

Integration with Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) notifications allows the device to send push notifications to typically mobile clients. For a thorough introduction and a full example, see the [Nabto Edge Push guide](https://docs.nabto.com/developer/guides/push/overview.html).

The integration is transparent meaning the Nabto platform forwards the provided payload directly to FCM, and so it must follow the format defined by FCM. Sending push notifications requires a Firebase project as outlined in the [Nabto Edge Push guide](https://docs.nabto.com/developer/guides/push/fcm-setup.html).

Sending a notification from the device is initiated by the device creating a NabtoDeviceFcmNotification object. Then the payload and project ID must be set on the object before sending.

When the send function is called, the device will send the notification to the Nabto Basestation which forwards it to FCM through its REST API.

When FCM has provided a response, the basestation returns the response to the device, and the NabtoDeviceFuture of the send function resolves. Now the FCM status code and response body can be read from the notification object. Finally, the notification object must be freed.

To setup FCM in your project, follow the general guidelines from Google. You must allow Nabto to send push notifications through your FCM project:

  1. Login to the Google Cloud Console

  2. Open the “IAM & Admin” page

  3. Add the Nabto Edge push service account sender@nabto-fcm-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com as a member with the role “Firebase SDK Provisioning Service Agent”.

In the last step, the only permission needed is cloudmessaging.messages.create so you can also create a custom role with only this privilege.

The Nabto Edge IAM module provides helper functionality to manage FCM tokens and manage subscription categories, see the simple_push example for how to use this on the device side. The IAM documentation at https://docs.nabto.com/developer/api-reference/coap/iam/users-put-user.html describes how the client invokes the IAM module. Also see the full Android client example at https://github.com/nabto/android-simple-push