Installing a separate instance of Node Red to be a testing environment that can be different from the other(s)

General
1

I currently have Node Red installed and working on a customers site. I haven't been able to understand how to setup another instance where I can make Node install changes. Basically a prod and test system or even a separate install on my machine for each customer.

2

Docker is probably the best option for this

If you want a separate instance for each customer on you local machine, just install docker and use the same docker compose file to spin up a new instance but using a different port number.

I do this currently. Live is on 1880, Dev is 1881.

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3

Node-RED is a node.js application. As such, you can easily create additional instances but each must have a unique port number and will need a separate userDir folder.

With the "standard" install installs the node-red package globally which means that each instance will be the same version. However, this isn't the only way of installing Node-RED. You can install locally and have different versions running in parallel. See my alternate installer for details.

4

FlowFuse is the best tool for this kind of cases.

You can create multiple NR instances and you can also link them via DevOps Pipelines. So one instance is your dev and the other the production. Once your dev project is finished, you trigger the deployment to production.

5

??? That is a rather strong suggestion and I'd have to say is not entirely true :slight_smile: It may be best for some use-cases but of course also comes with a cost.

6

The word is I agree a little strong - no marketing idea behind it, just my opinion as a user.

Since his message this solution seemed to suit him for the reasons mentioned.

There are of course other tools, other solutions. It's up to him to find his new toy based on what is offered to him.

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7

we have multiple node-red instances, providing different functionalities running on docker.
Each 'functional node-red instance' has it's own dev, acceptance en production install, en get new code (flow) releases through git repos.
Most of the time we have a traefik reverse proxy sitting in front of those, to hide the port all the different instance are running on.

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