IBM/BlueMix move node-red to existing Cloudant NoSQL DB

Question

I successfully set up the node-red starter on my IBM/BlueMix account. However, during the creation I did not have the choice to use a new Cloudant NoSQL DB instance (I guess this is where node-red stores its settings, and if I look at it via the web ui of IBM/BlueMix, I can indeed see only one database in it called "nodered"). I already had a Cloudant NoSQL DB instance which I want to use to centralize all my data.

How can I move the installed node-red to this Cloudant NoSQL DB instance?

Or did I overlook some setting during creation of the node-red that makes it possible during creation to point to an already existing Cloudant NoSQL DB instance?

Answer 1

The Node-RED instance deployed by the boilerplate has a small wrapper which sets up the storage of flows and other settings in the Cloudant instance. The boilerplate creates a Cloudant instance as part of the install.

You can override the Cloudant instance by binding the new instance to the Node-RED instance and then setting the following environment variable to the name of the Cloudant instance:

NODE_RED_STORAGE_NAME=<Cloudant Instance Name>

Details can be found here:

https://github.com/ibmets/node-red-bluemix/blob/master/public/app/bluemix-settings.js