Deploying RedBot in production often requires domain and an SSL certificates to work with chat platforms callbacks (i.e., Facebook Messenger, Slack, etc).

The following architecture uses Docker and Nginx

flowchart TD
  browser[Browser]
  subgraph server [*.mydomain.com]
	nginx[[Nginx reverse proxy]]
	redbot1(redbot1: RedBot server #1)
  redbotN(redbotN: RedBot server #N) 
  end
  browser <==> server
  nginx <== redbot1:1880 ==> redbot1
  nginx <== redbotN:1880 ==> redbotN

The Node-RED / RedBot server runs behind the reverse proxy pretty much in the same way it would run locally in development environment (plain http calls on port 1880) excepts for the REDBOT_ENVIRONMENT set to production.

Main benefits

• Node-RED runs as container the same way it runs in development (no need to patch settings.js for certificates, production specific folders, etc)
• Nginx Proxy Manager takes care of everyhting else (isolating the server from common attacks, Let’s Encrypt certificates creation and validation)
• with Nginx Proxy Manager UI is very simple to setup new Node-RED / RedBot servers
• easier to implement deployment strategies (a staging server to switch with production when the release is ready)

Pre-requisites:

• a server already configured with Docker and Docker Compose (see Docker Install documentation and Docker-Compose Install documentation)
• a domain (and if needed subdomains) pointing to the server (i.e. www.mydomain.com, redbot1.mydomain.com, redbotN.mydomain.com)

Step 1

Create a docker-compose.yml like the following

version: '3.3'
services:
  redbot1:
    environment:
      - REDBOT_HOST=redbot1.mydomain.com
      - REDBOT_ENABLE_MISSION_CONTROL=true
      - NODE_RED_ENABLE_PROJECTS=false
      - REDBOT_ENVIRONMENT=production
    user: 1000:1000
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - '/mnt/myvolume/redbot1:/data'
    ports:
      - '1880:1880'
    container_name: redbot1
    image: guidone/redbot
    networks:
      - redbotnet

  nginx:
    image: 'jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest'
    ports:
      - '80:80'
      - '81:81'
      - '443:443'
    networks:
      - redbotnet
      - outside
    container_name: nginx
    environment:
      DB_SQLITE_FILE: '/data/database.sqlite'
    volumes:
      - '/mnt/myvolume/nginx/data:/data'
      - '/mnt/myvolume/nginx/letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt'
  
networks:
  guidonet:
    driver: bridge
  outside:
    external: true