# Storing variable number of username/password credentials in configuration node

**URL:** https://discourse.nodered.org/t/storing-variable-number-of-username-password-credentials-in-configuration-node/5575
**Category:** Developing Nodes
**Created:** [7 December 2018 23:26 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/storing-variable-number-of-username-password-credentials-in-configuration-node/5575 "2018-12-07T23:26:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![varadi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e5b9ba/32.png) [@varadi](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/varadi)
#### Post date: [7 December 2018 23:26 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/storing-variable-number-of-username-password-credentials-in-configuration-node/5575/1 "2018-12-07T23:26:14Z")

</div>

I need to connect to a large number of authenticated sources of the same type (say, 100). I have a node that can communicate with one source, but using one authenticated node per source makes the flow completely unreadable and unmanageable with more than, say 10, sources. I really need to make one node that encapsulates all these sources and can contain a variable number of credentials. The node would receive a request as input payload, farm them out internally to all configured sources, and output individual, or maybe aggregated, response payloads.

I would therefore be great to have one configuration node with a variable number of username/password credentials, which would then get stored in node-red's credentials file. However, it looks like credentials can have only a static number of properties, e.g.,

```auto
credentials: {
         username: {type:"text"},
         password: {type:"password"}
     }

```

I suppose I could create 50 or so static credentials:

```auto
credentials: {
         username_0: {type:"text"},
         password_0: {type:"password"},
         username_1: {type:"text"},
         password_1: {type:"password"},
         ...
     }

```

and then dynamically use only the ones that I need for a particular list of sources. This feels like overkill and has an upper limit.

The package [node-red-contrib-credentials](https://flows.nodered.org/node/node-red-contrib-credentials) approaches this problem with a configuration node that has a variable number of username/password pairs. It managing the password visibility itself, and it stringifies all usernames and passwords into:

```auto
credentials: {
         creds: {type:"text"}
     }

```

The problem with the approach is that the passwords inside `creds` are now visible to the editor, which is not acceptable in my application.

I suppose I could work with a simple configuration node per source with the typical static credentials:

```auto
credentials: {
         username: {type:"text"},
         password: {type:"password"}
     }

```

and then create a node that uses a variable number of these configuration nodes? But could I then create a (meta-)configuration node that depends on a variable number of these simple configuration nodes?

So I am clearly stuck on this. Thanks for any suggestions.