Installing Node-RED on NixOS Latest

Introduction

Node-RED is an open-source flow-based programming tool that is used to create event-driven applications. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Node-RED on NixOS Latest.

Prerequisites

  • A NixOS Latest server or virtual machine
  • Basic knowledge of the command line interface.

Step 1: Update Your System

Before installing Node-RED, you need to make sure your system is up to date. You can do this by running the following command:

sudo nix-channel --update
sudo nixos-rebuild switch

This command will update your system and all your installed packages.

Step 2: Install Node-RED

To install Node-RED on NixOS Latest, you need to execute the following command in your terminal:

sudo nix-env -iA nixos.nodejs-14_x
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm node-red

This command will install Node.js 14.x and Node-RED. The unsafe-perm option is necessary since Node-RED will use the npm command to install packages globally.

Step 3: Configure Node-RED

The Node-RED configuration file is located in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix. You can edit this file using your favorite text editor:

sudo vim /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

Once you are in the configuration file, add the following lines:

services.node-red = {
  enable = true;
  port = 1880;
};

These lines will configure Node-RED to start automatically at boot and listen on port 1880.

Step 4: Restart Your Server

Now, you need to restart your NixOS Latest server to apply the changes you made to the Node-RED configuration file. You can do this by running the following command:

sudo reboot

After the server restarts, you can access Node-RED by visiting http://your_server_ip:1880 in your web browser. The Node-RED web interface will appear, and you can start creating your first flow.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to install Node-RED on NixOS Latest. We also learned how to configure Node-RED to start automatically and listen on port 1880. Now that you have Node-RED up and running, you can start building your event-driven applications.