Changelog

We've improved the log handling within our Hosted Node-RED instances. Previously we were using a fix sized buffer in memory; meaning the noiser your Node-RED instance was, the less history you'd have. The UI for browsing the logs was also awkward when you wanted to jump back to an earlier section of the logs.

With this release, once you update your instances to the latest version, we will now store the last 7 days worth of logs for each hosted Node-RED instance.

To go along side this, we've added the ability to jump to a specific time/date in the logs without having to endlessly scroll.

To start benefiting from the extended logs, make sure you update the latest version via your Instance Settings page.

Screenshot of browsing Node-RED logs by timestamp

From today, Team and Enterprise tier teams on FlowFuse Cloud are able to add a Git Repository stage to their deployment pipelines. When the pipeline is triggered, the latest snapshot will get pushed to the configured repository.

This has been one of those features that has come up a number of times with our users; we knew we wanted to have Git integration in the platform, but we also wanted it to fit in a natural way with the developer workflows we provide.

This is very much a "first-iteration" of the feature that will allow us to get feedback early and continue to iterate.

With this release, the following restrictions apply:

• Only GitHub.com hosted repostories are supported
• Users must create a GitHub Personal Access Token and add to their Team Settings
• We currently only support pushing snapshots to a Git repository

This last point is important; this release lets you backup your flows to git, but we haven't yet enabled the return journey of pulling a snapshot from a Git repository back to your Node-RED instance. That'll come in the near future and will unlock a full git-based review workflow within the pipelines.

We'll also look at enabling other Git hosting providers - let us know which you'd like to see on the list.

Screenshot of a Git Pipeline Stage

As part of the upcoming FlowFuse 2.16.0 release we will be updating which version the latest tag points to for the flowfuse/node-red containers.

This change will impact self-hosted Docker and Kubernetes installs that have not changed the default stack.

The latest tag currently points to the latest version of the FlowFuse Stack container but contains Node-RED version 3.0.2 and NodeJS 16. After the update it will contain Node-RED version 4.0.9 and NodeJS 20.

It will then continue to track the latest stable Node-RED version as they are released.

You can update the tag by creating a new version of the Stack under the Admin Settings -> Stacks page as a FlowFuse Admin user.

We make the following tags available which track the latest version of FlowFuse:

• flowfuse/node-red:latest as described above
• flowfuse/node-red:latest-2.2.x which contains Node-RED 2.2.2 NodeJS 16
• flowfuse/node-red:latest-3.0.x which contains Node-RED 3.0.2 NodeJS 16
• flowfuse/node-red:latest-3.1.x which contains Node-RED 3.1.15 NodeJS 18
• flowfuse/node-red:latest-4.0.x which contains Node-RED 4.0.9 NodeJS 20 (same as flowfuse/node-red:latest)

We also publish tags explicitly pinned to a FlowFuse version with the following format <version>-<node-red-version> e.g. flowfuse/node-red:2.15.0-4.0.x which would be FlowFuse 2.15.0 and Node-RED 4.0.x.

FlowFuse has had the ability to provision remote instances at scale for some time now, but assigning remote instances to an application has, until now, been a manual process.

In this update, we have added the ability to have your bulk provisioned remote instances automatically assign themselves to an application upon creation.

This will save you a lot of time if you have a large number of remote instances to provision.

Screenshot of creating a provisioning token

Checkout the Bulk Registration section in the Device Agent Registration documentation for more information on how to use this feature.

With the new 3.2.0 release of the FlowFuse Device Agent, we have introduced a new Local Login option for Remote Instances.

This feature allows you to enable a local login for your Remote Instance, which is particularly useful in air-gapped environments or times when the instance cannot reach the FlowFuse platform.

When local login is enabled, users can log in to Node-RED directly using the specified credentials.

For day-to-day activity, we still recommending accessing the editor through the FlowFuse Platform for the best user experience. However, for those times when that isn't possible, this option provides a fall-back to allow continued access to the device.

You can configure this option in your Remote Instance Settings tab under the Security section. Screenshot of local login options

Additionally, you can enable or disable local login for in the Device Agents YAML configuration file. For more information, refer to the Node-RED Settings in our documentation.

To help you manage resource utilization more effectively, we’ve introduced notifications to alert you when you’re nearing critical thresholds.

The new CPU and Memory notifications will notify you when usage exceeds 75% of capacity. This proactive alerting gives you the opportunity to take action before experiencing downtime or performance issues.

We hope this feature helps you avoid unexpected resource-related challenges with your applications.

Screenshot of the new resource notifications

#  How to Enable or Disable Notifications

You can manage these notifications in your Hosted Instance Settings tab under the Alerts section.

Screenshot of the new resource notifications settings

For Team and Enterprise tier Teams on FlowFuse Cloud we are introducing a NPM package repository giving you a place to host custom Node-RED nodes.

These Node-RED nodes can be used in both Hosted and Remote Instances and will show up in a custom catalogue with the name "FlowFuse Team [team name] Catalogue" in the Node-RED editor.

Custom Catalogue

A list of NPM Packages published to the Team's repository can be seen under the Team's Library section in the "Custom Nodes" tab

Custom Nodes list

This feature is also available to self hosting Enterprise customers on Kubernetes with Docker following shortly.

We are always looking for ways to improve FlowFuse and today, we have made a small but notable addition: the ability to delete old topics from your hierarchy.

This helps you keep things tidy and not clutter your hierarchy with old topics. Note that if the topic is published to again and detected by the platform, it will get added back.

Screenshot of the new Topic Delete feature

To simplify management of Snapshots, they can now be filtered to "All Snapshots", "User Snapshots" or "Auto Snapshots"

Screenshot of the new Snapshot filter

Last year, we announced the introduction of Device Groups. For those that are not familiar with Device Groups, this feature enables users to logically group their Remote Instances so that they can be targeted in a DevOps Pipeline facilitating streamlined and efficient deployments across your fleet of devices.

Previously, you could only use a Group as the last stage in a pipeline. With this update, you can now have Groups at other stages in a pipeline. For example, you may have a group of test devices that you want to push updates to before pushing them out to your larger group of production devices.

This improvement not only saves time but also enhances the consistency and reliability of remote instance management across your fleet.

We introduced the Free tier on FlowFuse Cloud back in December. This allows you to manage two remote instances using the FlowFuse Device Agent completely free of charge.

Since its launch we had many users sign-up and start connecting their remote instances to the platform. We've also had feedback on the fact it required you to enter credit card details to get fully set up.

We're please to announce that, as of today, you no longer need a credit card to sign-up to our Free tier - you can jump straight into getting your remote instances connected.

Check out the original announcement blog post on how to get started with the Free tier.

FlowFuse's new "Smart Suggestions" feature will help you get your full UNS and MQTT Broker documented with ease.

Our agent will monitor traffic through the Broker, and make calculate the schema of any payloads passed through. This assessment is turned into a "Suggestion" within the FlowFuse Platform, and can quickly be added to the formal schema for your Broker.

Improved feedback displayed to a user when a third-party broker does nto connect as expected

We've improved the feedback displayed to a user when a third-party broker does not connect as expected. This will help users to diagnose and resolve issues with their broker connections more easily, extending on the "error" status pill that was initially implemented alongside the broker's name.

Users can now get better visibility of the state of their Remote Instances with additional events in the Version History timeline. This enhancement improves traceability and provides deeper insights into remote instance state changes over time.

#  New Trackable Events

• Deploying Snapshots to Remote Instance via a Pipeline
• Deploying Snapshots through a Hosted Instance
• Snapshot Rollback
• Snapshot Create

These events will be automatically recorded in the version history, allowing users to review and audit changes more effectively.

We have added the ability to re-send team invitations, which also extends the expiration date of the invitation. This improvement ensures that invitations remain valid for a longer period and allows team administrators to easily re-invite users who may have missed their initial invitation.

This update enhances user management and simplifies the process of maintaining team memberships within FlowFuse.

Screenshot of the member invitation page

Search and filter functionality in the topic hierarchy list

We've introduced search and filter capabilities to the topic hierarchy list. This allows users to quickly find specific topics, making navigation more efficient and improving usability when working with large topic trees.

With the 3.1.1 release of the FlowFuse Device Agent, we've added two important pieces of new functionality.

#  FlowFuse User Authentication

It is now possible to enable end-point security on the instance. In the same way you can for Hosted Instances, you can now configure Basic Username/Password authentication or the more powerful FlowFuse User Authentication.

This means you can serve up your dashboards on remote Instances confident that only users in your FlowFuse team can access them.

#  Modifying settings in Developer Mode

Whilst a remote instance is in developer mode, you can access the Node-RED editor through the FlowFuse platform. This is a great way to develop your flows on real hardware through the platform.

A common developer task is to want to modify environment variables, or change device settings (such as enabling the new FlowFuse User authentication option).

Previously this would require taking the device out of developer mode in order to apply the changes. From a workflow, this required lots of additional steps for not a lot of benefit.

With the new release of the Device Agent, the agent will pick up any settings changes when it is restarted via the action menu in the FlowFuse UI. A small change, but a big improvement to the developer workflow.

Screenshot of the new MQTT Broker schema documentation view available in FlowFuse

This new view for your MQTT Broker focusses on clarity, and collaboration. It provides a single, easy to read window that provides the relevant information any member of your team or organization would need in order to understand what your MQTT broker is used for.

The underlying schema is generated automatically by FlowFuse, using the industry-standard, open-sourced, AsyncAPI, saving your months of resource in manually documenting payload and topic structures yourself.

The documentation provides a comprehensive view of the topics published to on your Broker, as well as crafted descriptions to help users understand each topic's purpose. This feature is available for both the in-built FlowFuse Broker, and any third-party broker that you choose to connect to.

Remote instances can now make use of the new Timeline feature, providing a concise, chronological view of key activities within your Node-RED remote setup.

The Timeline and Snapshots are now grouped together under the Version History tab, simplifying the navigation of your remote instance's history.

This feature is only available to Enterprise license and Cloud Team users. Note that the Timeline can only be accessed at the remote instance level.

Screenshot showing the new version history timeline

Screenshot showing the relocated snapshot page under the version history tab