Node.js - redwud/getting_starteds GitHub Wiki

Installing Node.js & NPM

Checkout Node.js download page. There are also Windows and Mac installers available. Pre-compiled Linux binaries and source code too. For Linux, you can also install Node via the package manager, check here.

For macOS

Suggested to use Homebrew, here or here.

brew install node
brew install npm

Node location and version (sample)

which node
/usr/bin/node

node --version
v8.2.1

NPM location and version (sample)

which npm
/usr/bin/npm

npm --version
5.6.0

Default Node Packaged Modules Location

npm can install packages locally or globally. Locally it installs the package in a node_modules folder of your working directory.

Global packages are installed in {user_folder}/lib/node_modules/ owned by root (where {user_folder} is typically /usr/ or /usr/local). Thus you have to use sudo to install packages globally, which could cause permission errors when resolving third-party dependencies and privilege escalation, a security concern.

To change that location

Our target configuration should look similar with this:

npm config list
; cli configs
metrics-registry = "https://registry.npmjs.org/"
scope = ""
user-agent = "npm/5.6.0 node/v8.2.1 darwin x64"

; userconfig /Users/jpXXX/.npmrc
prefix = "/Users/jpXXX/.node_modules_global"

; builtin config undefined
python = "/usr/bin/python"

; node bin location = /usr/local/bin/node
; cwd = /Users/jpXXX/Projects/personal/getting_starteds
; HOME = /Users/jpXXX
; "npm config ls -l" to show all defaults.

Specifically we need to change the prefix

npm config get prefix
/usr

Set global package location to $HOME folder

cd ~ && mkdir .node_modules_global
npm config set prefix=$HOME/.node_modules_global

Add bin folder to $PATH to run global packages CLI

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.node_modules_global/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Make npm not owned by root

Unless you used Homebrew to install npm

npm install npm --global