# Node-RED in Yocto

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-in-yocto/3034>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [11 September 2018 07:01 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-in-yocto/3034 "2018-09-11T07:01:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Simon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@Simon](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Simon)\
**Post date:** [11 September 2018 07:01 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-in-yocto/3034/1 "2018-09-11T07:01:29Z")

</div>

Hi,

I am working on an embedded Linux device with Node-RED. The OS we worked on was Debian, now we decided to move on to Yocto. I managed to enable Node-RED v1.18.5 in the build which brings me a few default nodes. But I didn't find a way to add serialport node which is used to communicate with another device.

I am wondering if there are any out of box serial port node I could use or I have to build a new one? Any advice or clue?

BTW, the platform is i.MX 6UL from NXP.

Thanks  
Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [11 September 2018 09:42 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-in-yocto/3034/2 "2018-09-11T09:42:26Z")

</div>

What errors do you get if you try to install the serial port node manually ?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Simon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@Simon](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Simon)\
**Post date:** [12 September 2018 00:27 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-in-yocto/3034/3 "2018-09-12T00:27:23Z")

</div>

Actually I got no idea how to install serialport node so there are no errors...  
In Debian, I run "npm i node-red-node-serialport" to install the node. But for Yocto, I assume it shouldn't be like this. To my understanding, the work flow in Yocto should be: Config -\> Cross compile in PC -\> flash image to target device. So I am looking for a recipe to install the node. I found node-red and some nodes in "[https://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/branch/master/recipes/?q=node-red](https://layers.openembedded.org/layerindex/branch/master/recipes/?q=node-red)", and this is the way I install Node-RED, but I didn't find serialport there.

I am new to both Yocto and Node-RED, please correct me if there is anything wrong.

Thanks  
Simon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [12 September 2018 02:08 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-in-yocto/3034/4 "2018-09-12T02:08:35Z")

</div>

well Node-RED runs on top of node.js so somehow that must be installed - and that should hopefully include npm - so I would hope you can still try to run npm i node-red-serialport. I can well believe that that may fail and you may need to install some pre-reqs like gcc or other compile tools as serialport does require local compile to suit the platform.

Other Yocto platforms have made it work in the past so I would like to think it is possible but...

> <https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/issues/747>