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[nzbrewer]

I have installed a Node-RED service within another docker application and have successfully used it communicate with the app and perform additional tasks. I've added uibuilder to node-red and set up a flow according to the instructions but haven't been able to get the URL to display. The app and node-red are installed on a Raspberry Pi 4 and being accessed through the local network. The purpose is to create a simplified control on a touchscreen connected to the pi to execute the node-red code.

I'm assuming it is a path issue with my installation. The correct folders were created within the node-red folder when the configured uibuilder was deployed and nothing is obviously wrong in the settings.js file. The node-red installation was customized slightly to make it easy to work with the main application (as per the application developer instructions) and has worked flawlessly. Only uibuilder appears to not work. Nothing shows as well in the debug window when injecting the timestamp into the flow detailed in the getting started tutorial.

The node-red folder is within the root folder of the application and the 1880 port is shared with the application. The node-red UI access has been configured to be the pi IP address/node-red. The uibuilder installation created the path as "path": "/data/uibuilder" and the /data folder doesn't exist. Is the fix just replacing /data with /node-red or possibly deleting the /data prefix since the node-red folder is set in the setting.js folder (i.e., httpAdminRoot: "/node-red")? Also would this be done in the uibuilder package.json file only and then deleting the current test flows?

Any suggestions?

[TotallyInformation]

BTW: You will often get quicker responses by posting on the Node-RED forum, I am in there most days. 😊

I assume you are using the latest version of uibuilder? Is Docker on Windows or Linux?

So you are not using the pre-built Node-RED Docker container but your own custom one?

Also, are you using the Node-RED projects feature? This can mess with folder locations.

The node-red folder is within the root folder of the application

Can you explain that a bit more please? What we really need to know is where is the userDir folder? By default uibuilder creates its own folder structure (generally referred to as uibRoot) inside the Node-RED userDir.

When using Docker containers, the userDir needs to be in a writable location and so generally should not be within the container itself. The default Node-RED container uses a location mounted as /data within the container which is then used for the userDir.

The uibuilder installation created the path as "path": "/data/uibuilder" and the /data folder doesn't exist

This implies that Node-RED believes the userDir folder to be /data. As it doesn't exist, uibuilder won't have been able to create its folder. You should have got an installation and possibly an ongoing runtime error in the logs for that situation. If that hasn't happened, I will need to make some code adjustments for the next release.

It would be really helpful if you could share the startup part of the node-red log up to the point where it says [info] Started flows. You will also find in there some useful information about uibuilder's startup and configuration.

[TotallyInformation]

By the way, I have already added an additional check into the uibuilder initialisation code so that it throws an error if the userDir is not writable. That should make things like this more obvious in the future. That will be in the next release (likely to be v7.5.0)

[nzbrewer]

The application is Brewblox which is used to monitor and control brewing systems. The server runs on a pi and communicates with an ESP32 based controller that has sensor inputs and io outputs to control pumps, valves and heaters, usually through SSRs. The node-red installation is done within the Brewblox folder and the service added to the docker-compose.yml file. The installation instructions are here if that provides any clues.

Uibuilder was installed using 'manage palette' and the resulting folder path is home/pi/brewblox/node-red/uibuilder. Normally brewblox is installed on a headless pi but we use one with the full desktop installation on an ssd. Node-red however is still accessed through ssh.

What we are building is an automated keg cleaning system. The process sequences were created within brewblox with some additional functionality provided by node-red. I'd like to use Uibuilder to create a simplified control screen for the system. Development is being done on a separate pi4 with an SSD and a fresh install of everything within the last 10 days. Uibuilder is the latest v7.4.2. I'm still investigating how to access the node-red startup log.

[nzbrewer]

I see the service setup added to the docker-compose file did state the target is /data. That folder doesn't exist but node-red still works fine and I see no runtime errors either. Could /data be an alias set somewhere to /node-red? I've looked through the configuration files and haven't seen anything. Everything that is shown as being in /data is in the root node-red folder. Here is the startup log:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Service: node-red +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.232371078Z 13 Jul 10:22:27 - [info]
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.232574372Z
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.232596669Z Welcome to Node-RED
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.232603798Z ===================
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.232611057Z
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.243004176Z 13 Jul 10:22:27 - [info] Node-RED version: v4.0.9
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.243112471Z 13 Jul 10:22:27 - [info] Node.js version: v20.19.0
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:27.243124082Z 13 Jul 10:22:27 - [info] Linux 6.12.34+rpt-rpi-v8 arm64 LE
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:28.107659951Z 13 Jul 10:22:28 - [info] Loading palette nodes
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.064694507Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] Settings file : /data/settings.js
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.067599237Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] Context store : 'default' [module=memory]
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.069931306Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] User directory : /data
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.070361061Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [warn] Projects disabled : editorTheme.projects.enabled=false
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.073212032Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] Flows file : /data/flows.json
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.101111067Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] Server now running at http://127.0.0.1:1880/node-red/
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.105878686Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [warn]
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.105953722Z
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.105966499Z ---------------------------------------------------------------------
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.105977166Z Your flow credentials file is encrypted using a system-generated key.
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.105988333Z
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.105997869Z If the system-generated key is lost for any reason, your credentials
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106007647Z file will not be recoverable, you will have to delete it and re-enter
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106017184Z your credentials.
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106026554Z
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106035721Z You should set your own key using the 'credentialSecret' option in
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106045276Z your settings file. Node-RED will then re-encrypt your credentials
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106054813Z file using your chosen key the next time you deploy a change.
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106064443Z ---------------------------------------------------------------------
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.106074258Z
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.109664185Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] +-----------------------------------------------------
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.110326678Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] | 🌐 uibuilder v7.4.2 initialised
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.110524324Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] | root folder: /data/uibuilder
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.110640082Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] | Using Node-RED's webserver at:
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.111504444Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] | http://0.0.0.0:1880/
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.111631961Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] | Installed packages:
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.111753404Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] +-----------------------------------------------------
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.129373394Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] Starting flows
node-red-1 | 2025-07-13T14:22:35.342529548Z 13 Jul 10:22:35 - [info] Started flows

[TotallyInformation]

The installation instructions are here if that provides any clues.

Yes, that is needed:

    volumes:
    - type: bind
      source: ./node-red
      target: /data

That along with the log tells me that the userDir maps to /data internally to Docker and externally to ./node-red BUT, that is somewhat suspect because it is a relative filing system reference. Relative to what? I can't tell and could potentially be different on different platforms. It should point to an absolute path such as /home/node-red/ (which might be the case if the host system has a user called node-red and that the Docker instance has access to that users home data.

Bottom line is that, if you have access to the host device, the folder you are looking for is called node-red but I don't know where that will actually be on the host, you will need to discover that. Possibly running the shell command where node-red may tell you.

If you have access to the terminal WITHIN the container, then the folder is /data.

Either way, within that parent folder are your flows and settings.js files and other things. There should be a /uibuilder/ sub-folder as well.

I am actually assuming that the configuration is all correct because uibuilder and node-red would both collapse in a heap if the folder did not exist. So I think that is a red-herring.

[info] Server now running at http://127.0.0.1:1880/node-red/

[info] | http://0.0.0.0:1880/

I think this is giving us the clue as to why things aren't working as expected for uibuilder.

So the next question is - what URL are you using to display the Node-RED Editor?

Looking at the Brewblox config (thanks for sharing that, very helpful). I can see that it is using the Traefik proxy server as well and is proxying http://<xxxxxxx>:1880/node-red which is where the Editor URL is set to.

However, looking at the uibuilder configuration, you can see that it's root URL is http://<xxxxxxx>:1880/ so if you create a uibuilder node with the url "test", you would access its home page at http://<xxxxxxx>:1880/test. If that is not working, then the issue is most likely in the Traefik configuration. That would need amending so that it correctly proxies everything from http://<xxxxxxx>:1880/ down and not just http://<xxxxxxx>:1880/node-red.

Alternatively, you could set uibuilder to serve everything using the http://<xxxxxxx>:1880/node-red url as its root - this should not impact the Editor at all. To do that, you will need to edit node-red's settings.js to change the httpNodeRoot property. Using Brewblox's own commands, that would be something like:

sudo sed -i 's#//httpNodeRoot:.*#httpNodeRoot: "/node-red",#g' ./node-red/settings.js
sudo chown 1000:1000 ./node-red/settings.js

If you take this second route, your test instance would now be at http://<xxxxxxx>:1880/node-red/test.

You should note that these complexities are precisely why all of the URL's in uibuilder are relative URL's - including the template front-end source HTML. That way, you never have to worry about where things really are when editing your HTML. Node-RED provides incredible flexibility in settings different URL paths but sometimes this does catch people out. 😊

[nzbrewer]

Thanks heaps for this, I was struggling to nail down the possible issue.

To access the pi, I use an ftp program so can view the folder structure and even edit files using VS Code. While researching this, I did see that the httpNodeRoot parameter was not set (commented out) and wondered if that should be set for this. The absolute path for node-red is home/pi/brewblox/node-red and I access it from a windows system on the same local network at https://xxxxxxxxx/node-red without needing to include the port. The uibuilder generated url homepage is https://xxxxxxxxx/test. I had tried adding the port to url generated by uibuilder but received an 'Unable to connect' error message. I had also seen the http://0.0.0.0:1880/ in the log report address as the uibuilder url which was suspicious. The http://127.0.0.1:1880/node-red/ address is what I would use if accessing node-red from a browser on the pi.

Rather than trying to amend the Traefik configuration, I'll set the httpNodeRoot parameter as suggested to see how that goes.

Thanks again.

[nzbrewer]

That worked, thanks.

[TotallyInformation]

Glad you got it sorted.