Is it possible to edit configuration nodes in a Node-Red flow? - amazon-web-services

Question

In Node-Red, I'm using some Amazon Web Services nodes (from module node-red-node-aws), and I would like to read some configuration settings from a file (e.g. the access key ID & the secret key for the S3 nodes), but I can't find a way to set everything up dynamically, as this configuration has to be made in a config node, which can't be used in a flow.
Is there a way to do this in Node-Red?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Unless a node implementation specifically allows for dynamic configuration, this is not something that Node-RED does generically.
One approach I have seen is to have a flow update itself using the admin REST API into the runtime - see https://nodered.org/docs/api/admin/methods/post/flows/
That requires you to first GET the current flow configuration, modify the flow definition with the desired values and then post it back.
That approach is not suitable in all cases; the config node still only has a single active configuration.
Another approach, if the configuration is statically held in a file, is to insert them into your flow configuration before starting Node-RED - ie, have a place-holding config node configuration in the flow that you insert the credentials into.
Finally, you can use environment variables: if you set the configuration node's property to be something like $(MY_AWS_CREDS), then the runtime will substitute that environment variable on start-up.

Answer 2

You can update your package.json start script to start Node-RED with your desired credentials as environment variables:
"scripts": {
"start": "AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<SECRET_KEY> AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<KEY_ID> ./node_modules/.bin/node-red -s ./settings.js"
}
This worked perfect for me when using the node-red-contrib-aws-dynamodbnode. Just leave the credentials in the node blank and they get picked up from your environment variables.