Tutorial: Library Installation

Prerequisites

To use the Cisco pxGrid DXL Node-RED client package, the following prerequisites must be satisfied:

• Node-RED must be installed.

  The OpenDXL Node-RED Docker repository provides instructions on how to create a Node-RED container in Docker.

  For more information on other Node-RED installation approaches, see https://nodered.org/docs/getting-started/installation.

  Note: In order to be able to import examples properly from the Node-RED UI, version 0.18.0 or newer of Node-RED should be installed.

• The OpenDXL Node-RED core package must be installed in Node-RED.

  Note: If you use the OpenDXL Node-RED Docker image, the OpenDXL Node-RED core package should be installed automatically on the first run of the Docker container.

• The DXL fabric to which the client will connect has been bridged to Cisco pxGrid.

• DXL client has been configured in Node-RED.

  • https://opendxl.github.io/node-red-contrib-dxl/jsdoc/tutorial-configuration.html

• Node.js 4.0 or higher installed.

Installation

The Cisco pxGrid DXL Node-RED client package can be installed via the following approaches:

• Node-RED Based

  With this approach, the Cisco pxGrid DXL Node-RED client package is installed from within Node-RED itself. See the Node-RED Based Installation section below for more information.

• Command Line Installation

  With this approach, the Cisco pxGrid DXL Node-RED client package is installed via npm from the command-line on the host where the Node-RED server is running. See the Command Line Installation section below for more information.

Node-RED Based Installation

1. Browse to your Node-RED server.

2. In the upper-right corner, press the side menu button.

3. Choose the Manage palette option in the menu drop-down list.

4. From the Palette user settings tab, click on the Install tab.

5. In the search modules text box, enter dxl-pxgrid.

6. Next to the entry for @opendxl/node-red-contrib-dxl-pxgrid-client in the search results, press the install button.

7. On the Installing confirmation dialog, press the Install button.

   A dialog containing text like the following should appear when the installation is complete:

   Nodes added to palette:
   
   * dxl-ise...

8. Click on the Close button to close the User Settings tab.

Command Line Installation

Before installing the Cisco pxGrid DXL Node-RED client package, first navigate in a command shell to the user directory which you have configured for Node-RED. The .node-red directory under the user's HOME directory is the default user directory for Node-RED.

For Mac and Linux-based operating systems, run the following command:

cd ~/.node-red

For Windows, run the following command:

cd %HOMEPATH%\.node-red

To install the library from a local tarball for a Mac or Linux-based operating system, run the following command:

npm install ./lib/opendxl-node-red-contrib-dxl-pxgrid-client-0.1.1.tgz --save

To install the library from a local tarball for Windows, run:

npm install .\lib\opendxl-node-red-contrib-dxl-pxgrid-client-0.1.1.tgz --save

To install the library via the npm package registry, run the following command:

npm install @opendxl/node-red-contrib-dxl-pxgrid-client --save

After the installation is complete, restart Node-RED and browse to your Node-RED server.

Confirming the Installation Result

After the installation is complete, you should see several Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) nodes in the left column, under the cisco ise operations and cisco ise notifications node palette categories:

For more information, see the Node-RED Configuration documentation.