Deploy Node-RED in one click

What is Node-RED?

Node-RED is an open-source, low-code programming tool for event-driven applications, often run in place of Zapier or IFTTT. In its editor in the browser you drag nodes onto a canvas and wire them into flows: a message comes in from an HTTP request, an MQTT topic, a webhook or a timer, passes through nodes that change, filter or route it, and goes out to a database, an API or a chat. A Function node runs your own JavaScript where no node fits, and the community library has more than 6,000 nodes to install from the editor.

Node-RED was started at IBM in 2013 and is now a project of the OpenJS Foundation. People use it for home automation, often beside Home Assistant, for IoT and industrial data, and as glue between web services, and they self-host it to run their automations around the clock with no price per run. This template opens the editor only to the username and password given. The catch: the routes of HTTP In nodes are public, so an endpoint that should be private needs httpNodeAuth in settings.js or a check of its own.

Hosting Node-RED on Pethost

1. You sign in to Pethost with a passkey, GitHub or Google. No machine yet? You pick a plan, and the link waits until it is ready.
2. New project opens at Node-RED. You fill in what it asks for and click Create project: Username, Admin password.
3. In a minute or two Node-RED is live at its own address with HTTPS. Its secrets are made at random, and its data is in the nightly backup.
4. It is a project like any other: you or your agent can change it, roll it back or restore it.

Questions about Node-RED

Node-RED Docker Compose file

The template is this compose.yaml and the variables written into the project’s .env as it is created. Pethost runs the file as it is written.

Containers: node-red (nodered/node-red:5).

Volumes, in the nightly backup: data.

services:
  node-red:
    image: nodered/node-red:5
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      TZ: ${TZ:-UTC}
      ADMIN_USERNAME: ${ADMIN_USERNAME}
      ADMIN_PASSWORD: ${ADMIN_PASSWORD}
    # The editor would be open to anyone with the address. Node-RED starts with the settings of
    # /data/settings.js, which are yours to edit, and with the username and password of the
    # project's .env as its only sign-in, unless settings.js sets adminAuth itself.
    entrypoint: ["/bin/bash", "-c"]
    command:
      - |
        # The first start: settings.js to edit, and no flow, where the image's would warn of a
        # missing volume, which the project has.
        if [ ! -f /data/settings.js ]; then
          cp node_modules/node-red/settings.js /data/settings.js
          rm -f /data/flows.json
        fi
        cat > /tmp/settings.js <<'END'
        const { createHash, timingSafeEqual } = require("node:crypto");
        const settings = require("/data/settings.js");
        const digest = (text) => createHash("sha256").update(String(text)).digest();
        const user = (username) => (username === process.env.ADMIN_USERNAME ? { username, permissions: "*" } : null);
        settings.adminAuth ??= {
          type: "credentials",
          users: async (username) => user(username),
          authenticate: async (username, password) =>
            timingSafeEqual(digest(password), digest(process.env.ADMIN_PASSWORD)) ? user(username) : null
        };
        module.exports = settings;
        END
        exec ./entrypoint.sh --settings /tmp/settings.js
    volumes:
      - data:/data

volumes:
  data:

compose.yamlSee it on GitHub