How to setup a custom Domain for a Node-RED instance on IBM Cloud

This blog post is a short cheat sheet, how easy it is to configure/setup a custom domain for a Node-RED example instance on IBM Cloud for a Cloud Foundry App. To do this you need a Pay-As-You-Go or Trial-Account for the IBM Cloud.

The image below shows my Node-RED Node.js instance in IBM Cloud and the invocation in a browser.

Cloud Foundry App Instance	Node-RED invocation in a browser

Setup steps¶

These are the few steps I did.

1. Setup a Node-RED Starter app on IBM Cloud using Cloud Foundry.
2. Get an own domain from a domain provider and ensure the provider gives the ability to customize the CNAME record for the domain! In my case I used GoDaddy. At GoDaddy it is possible to configure the CNAME record.
3. Follow the steps “adding and using a custom domain” in the IBM Cloud documentation.

Overview of the setup/configurations¶

In the image below we see a simplified overview of the setup/configuration.

1. The URL http://node-red.suedbroecker.com to invoke the Node-RED app in the browser.
2. The configuration of the region mapping in GoDaddy. Mapping to the IBM Cloud (custom-domain.us-south.cf.cloud.ibm.com) endpoint, where the Cloud Foundry application instance is running.
3. The configuration inside IBM Cloud to map the domain the region, where the Cloud Foundry application running, in this case it’s US south region.
4. The definition of the routes to access the Cloud Foundry app instance inside IBM Cloud.

Overview of the dependencies¶

The image below contains a simplified overview of the dependencies of the configuration/setup.

1. Invoke the URL http://node-red.suedbroecker.com to request the Node-RED app.
2. The server routes the request to the IBM Cloud. GoDaddy has registered the mapping of the URL in the Domain Name System (DNS) Server.
3. The configuration inside IBM Cloud, will route the request to the Node-RED app.

“Who is?” … this Domain¶

We should keep in mind now everyone on the world can inspect the domain. The image below shows an example usage of the who.is for the http://node-red.suedbroecker.com URL to get details of it.

The gif shows the usage of the custom domain. As you can see the connection is currently not secure it uses only http so the communication is not encrypted.

Summary¶

It’s pretty easy to setup the custom domain for a Cloud Foundry app in IBM Cloud. With this configuration we have currently the setup for HTTP. Using HTTPS is a topic for an other blog post.

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I hope this was useful for you and let’s see what’s next?

Greetings,

Thomas

#IBMCloud, #Domain, #GoDaddy, #CloudFoundy