Docker and n8n custom nodes
You have developed your own node and you want to test it on your n8n instance running on docker, let’s see how to do this!
Prerequisite
(This is what I used)
- Ubuntu 18.04 (running on AWS)
- n8n instance running on Docker
- Your node (built or not)
Build your custom nodes
If you didn’t build your node before, you can do it with n8n-node-dev command :
ubuntu@aws_IP:~/factory_n8n$ n8n-node-dev build
Build credentials and nodes
=========================
The nodes got build and saved into the following folder:
/home/ubuntu/.n8n/custom
Your node is now built for n8n and files are located in your n8n directory as you can see in the returned message.
You will find for each file 3 new files (whatever your original files : node, credentials or script file linked to your node), example :
- If you build a node called “mynode.node.ts” :
- mynode.node.d.ts
- mynode.node.js
- mynode.node.js.map
Organize your docker volume
If you have followed the official tutorial to launch your n8n instance with Docker (https://docs.n8n.io/reference/server-setup.html#_5-create-docker-compose-file), you have mounted a volume based dedicated to n8n :
volumes:
- ${DATA_FOLDER}/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n
After to determine where is your data folder, you can create a new directory inside .n8n called “custom” (it does not exist by default).
Once done, move your node files built earlier to this new directory (with “mv” command).
Go to your directory which contains your docker-compose file and restart n8n
docker-compose stop #if already launched
docker-compose up -d #detach launched
You can now access to your custom node (node/credentials) on your docker instance!