NVM & Node.js - Recommended install for all users

Question

is there a recommended install for nvm so all users can use it? i cannot find anything on the web regarding this.

this is what i did

• installed nvm in a common directory
• put the nvm.sh script locationin .profile for all users
• created a nvm/alias directory (nvm complains if this is not here for other users)

then each user must either run "nvm use " or put it in their profile by default

not sure if there is a better way?

thanks

Answer 1

Here is what I did:

1. Installed nvm in /opt/nvm as root. Seemed like an appropriate location.

   # git clone git@github.com:creationix/nvm.git /opt/nvm
   

2. Created the directory /usr/local/nvm. This is where the downloads will go ($NVM_DIR)

   # mkdir /usr/local/nvm
   

3. Create the directory /usr/local/node. This is where the NPM global stuff will go:

   # mkdir /usr/local/node
   

4. Created a file called nvm.sh in /etc/profile.d with the following contents:

   export NVM_DIR=/usr/local/nvm
   source /opt/nvm/nvm.sh
   
   export NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=/usr/local/node
   export PATH="/usr/local/node/bin:$PATH"
   

5. Re-login to a shell session, then set the default node version.

   # nvm install 0.10
   # nvm alias default 0.10
   

The node binaries should now be in the PATH for all users the next time you login to a shell session. NPM will install global things to the /usr/local/node prefix.

Answer 2

It's best to install one copy of node globally so that other users can access it. To do this, run the following command (entering your user's password at the prompt):

n=$(which node);n=${n%/bin/node}; chmod -R 755 $n/bin/*; sudo cp -r $n/{bin,lib,share} /usr/local

This commend is copying whatever version of node you have active via nvm into the /usr/local/ directory and setting the permissions so that all users can access them.

To check that it works, become the root user and do another which command to make sure that node is now installed to /usr/local/bin:

sudo -s
which node

If you ever want to change the version of node that's installed system wide, just do another nvm use vXX.XX.XX to switch your user's node to the version you want, and then re-run the first command above to copy it to the system directory.

Answer 3

1. Login as root: sudo -s
2. Install nvm: curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.33.1/install.sh | NVM_DIR=/usr/local/nvm bash
3. Created a file called nvm.sh in /etc/profile.d with the following contents: #!/usr/bin/env bash export NVM_DIR="/usr/local/nvm" [ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
4. Run /etc/profile.d/nvm.sh
5. Install node: nvm install node
6. Optionally update npm with: npm install -g npm

Answer 4

Since LJHarb recommends not installing this globally, I decided to create a script to install nvm when you login to the server. I needed this as I had several users setup that may login, but needed access to pm2 (to monitor one of our applications).

Create the script in /etc/profile.d/ (named nvm.sh for example):

#!/bin/bash
NODE_VER=6.2.2
if [ ! -f ~/.nvm/nvm.sh ]; then
    # May need to be updated with the latest nvm release
    wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.0/install.sh | bash
fi
source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh
if ! command -v node | grep -q $NODE_VER; then
    echo "Node is not installed"
    nvm install $NODE_VER
    nvm alias default $NODE_VER
fi

For our application, we needed pm2 shared between users:

if ! command -v pm2 &>/dev/null; then
    echo "pm2 not installed"
    npm install -g pm2
fi
# Share pm2 configuration between users
alias pm2='env HOME=/opt/sora pm2'

Answer 5

There is also this fork of nvm designed for global usage: https://github.com/xtuple/nvm

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xtuple/nvm/master/install.sh | sudo bash

sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local/nvm

nvm install 8

Update : I tried various ways to use xtuple's nvm and also n to manage a global node environment and I always ran into edge cases where there were issues. In the end what worked best for me was to download a few versions of node from their website and uncompress them to /usr/local. Then update my path with the version I want. e.g.

export PATH=/usr/local/node-v7.10.1-linux-x64/bin:$PATH

Note: You will probably have to chmod 777 the node path or dedicate one user to mange it.