Cannot install NodeJs: /usr/bin/env: node: No such file or directory

Question

I'm trying to install nodeJs into my Ubuntu 14.04 in order to use GruntJs.

I've read about Ubuntu different way of doing it (issues?), so this is what I've done in order to install it:

sudo apt-get install npm

sudo npm install -g grunt-cli

Typing grunt after that I've got the error:

/usr/bin/env: node: No such file or directory

So, I've tried:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup | sudo bash -

sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

sudo apt-get update

And trying again, and still getting the error, I've tried:

sudo add-apt-repository https://launchpad.net/~chris-lea/+archive/node.js/

sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

I've got this message:

nodejs is already the newest version.
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 3 not to upgrade.

I did try a cleanup just in case:

sudo apt-get autoremove

But nope, the error is still there: when I type grunt I still get /usr/bin/env: node: No such file or directory

What should I do?

This problem does not occur with Ubuntu 20.04. sudo apt-file find /usr/bin/node lists nodejs: /usr/bin/node. That is, installing the nodejs package installs the expected node executable program. — Raedwald
– Raedwald, Commented Oct 12, 2020 at 11:54

fedorqui · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-08 10:11:54Z

875

Doing a symlink solves the issue:

ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

(My thanks and +1 vote to bodokaiser's answer).

edited Apr 8, 2020 at 10:11

fedorqui

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answered Oct 12, 2014 at 1:22

Rosamunda

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13 Comments

anatoly techtonik Over a year ago

sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy creates this link too, see description at packages.debian.org/sid/nodejs-legacy

Josh Frankel Over a year ago

This fix is seriously a lifesaver. Especially, if you are following the fixing permissions guide here docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/fixing-npm-permissions

yussan Over a year ago

thanks, this is help me to solved my problem on docker too github.com/yussan/docker-nodejs-boilerplate/tree/master/…

dza Over a year ago

I added it to /usr/local/bin just so I remember it's a custom symlink.

technogeek1995 Over a year ago

You should use which node so you get the correct path to your node. So the command would be ln -s "$(which node)" /usr/bin/node

|

Shawn · Accepted Answer · 2023-07-13 17:17:52Z

130

The issue is not with the version of node. Instead, it is the way NodeJS is installed by default in Ubuntu. When running a Node application in Ubuntu you have to run nodejs something.js instead of node something.js

So the application name called in the terminal is nodejs and not node. This is why there is a need for a symlink to simply forward all the commands received as node to nodejs.

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

edited Jul 13, 2023 at 17:17

Shawn

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answered Dec 11, 2014 at 5:39

Muhammad bin Yusrat

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1 Comment

Matheos Over a year ago

Thanks! Same "issue" on Fedora if you choose to install the nodejs20 package from (binary is named node-20 here) dnf... I had already set an alias for it in zsh (node = node-20) but that was not sufficient for npm to understand but the symlink sure does the trick :) Not sure why the heck the symlink is not created by the package itself..

Mohammad Rajabloo · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-19 13:55:27Z

111

if you are using nvm node version manager, use this command to create a symlink:

sudo ln -s "$(which node)" /usr/bin/node
sudo ln -s "$(which npm)" /usr/bin/npm

The first command creates a symlink for node
The second command creates a symlink for npm

edited Nov 19, 2020 at 13:55

answered Jul 11, 2020 at 13:50

Mohammad Rajabloo

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5 Comments

Obay Abd-Algader Over a year ago

I prefer /usr/local/bin/node instead

guru_florida Over a year ago

This works, but if you intend to use nvm to actual manage different versions then you have to repeat this every time you nvm to a different version.

Rasyidi Alwee Over a year ago

This work, I installed node using nvm, and have problem with running laravel-echo-server which run on node. You saved me after 2 hours. thanks

Varun Deva Over a year ago

This worked. thanks i was getting error /usr/bin/env: ‘node’: No such file or directory when i run git commit.

codeforHarman Over a year ago

sudo ln -s "$(which node)" /usr/local/bin/node sudo ln -s "$(which npm)" /usr/local/bin/npm These commands will be favorable as doing symlinks in /usr/bin folders are not allowed directly for root users also. will have to disable csrutil, which is not a good practice

Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-12 01:26:29Z

70

I think you should upgrade lastest node version

sudo npm cache clean -f
sudo npm install -g n
sudo n stable

edited Oct 12, 2014 at 1:26

Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED

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answered Oct 12, 2014 at 1:23

vanlan228

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5 Comments

Qix - MONICA WAS MISTREATED Over a year ago

Just a tip; indent your lines of code by 4 spaces ;) also, n is not a command that's associate with Node.JS.

frdmn Over a year ago

@David based on the package description on NPM: "Interactively Manage All Your Node Versions"

criticerz Over a year ago

Solved the problem for me

sam Over a year ago

i copied a laravel project from windows machine to ubuntu 16.04 and laravel mix had problem with npm run watch AND this solution worked for me and now problem gone

Benji A. Over a year ago

It should be mentioned here that n is a 3rd-party package manager for NodeJS, and therefore is not installing the "lastest [sic] node version".

shabeer90 · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-09 18:10:27Z

29

if you are able to access node on ubuntu terminal using nodejs command,then this problem can be simply solved using -creating a symbolic link of nodejs and node using

ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

and this may solve the problem

edited Feb 9, 2017 at 18:10

shabeer90

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answered Feb 12, 2016 at 21:13

Hiro

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Comments

Emile Bergeron · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-16 22:00:38Z

26

In my case, installing nodejs-legacy solved the issue.

sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy

edited Feb 16, 2017 at 22:00

Emile Bergeron

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answered Mar 27, 2016 at 9:44

Suleyman Arslan

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Comments

Prabhu Nandan Kumar · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-07 10:27:15Z

11

Just do

$ sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy

And it will start working.

answered Jun 7, 2017 at 10:27

Prabhu Nandan Kumar

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Comments

Tom Hale · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-03 04:35:04Z

10

If you already have nodejs installed (check with which nodejs) and don't want to install another package, you can, as root:

update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/node node /usr/bin/nodejs 99

answered Aug 3, 2016 at 4:35

Tom Hale

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2 Comments

Lætitia Over a year ago

This is the proper Debian way.

lava Over a year ago

this worked for me. ubuntu 20,node 10 npm 8

Ahmad Awais · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-29 09:54:18Z

9

I've found this is often a misnaming error, if you install from a package manager you bin may be called nodejs so you just need to symlink it like so

ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

answered Jul 29, 2016 at 9:54

Ahmad Awais

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2 Comments

Ahmad Awais Over a year ago

Instead of adding a negative feedback, let me know here in the comment what is wrong, so I can help you with that. Since there is nothing wrong in creating a symlink especially if it helps you manage things better.

Muhammad Gelbana Over a year ago

I for my self prefer this approach. It's clean.

Stephen Rauch · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-03 00:40:31Z

8

Depending on how you installed your node, most of the time it might not be in /usr/bin/, in my own case it was I used nvm to install so my node was in ./nvm/versions.

Using this command which node I found out the path, but to make the work easier you can run this command.

nodepath=$(which node); sudo ln -s $nodepath /usr/bin/node

the above command will get the location of your node and create a link for you.

edited Jun 3, 2018 at 0:40

Stephen Rauch♦

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answered Jun 3, 2018 at 0:15

akisoft

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Comments

Philip Kirkbride · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-26 14:54:52Z

6

When I was using gulp i got this error.

~$ gulp

/usr/bin/env: ‘node’: No such file or directory

This was removed by executing following command you have to keep in mind that /usr/bin directory has all permissions.

~$ ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

this works for me..

edited Oct 26, 2017 at 14:54

Philip Kirkbride

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answered Apr 30, 2017 at 8:55

Naveen Gupta

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1 Comment

Abdeali Chandanwala Over a year ago

I had the same issue, but the solution didnt worked. I check whether node is installed or not using "node -v" command, and found it missing. It must be because I upgraded from 10.04 to ubuntu 20.04 recently.

Pavel · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-28 08:47:36Z

6

There are two solutions to this:

a) Set your PATH variable to include "/usr/local/bin"

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"

b) Create a symlink to "/usr/bin" which is already in your PATH

ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

I hope it helps.

answered Sep 28, 2018 at 8:47

Pavel

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Comments

link · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-21 07:33:46Z

6

Follow these commands to fix the problem.

In a terminal:

Clean the entire NPM cache:
```
$ sudo npm cache clean -f
```
```
sudo npm install -g n
```
Install the latest stable version of Node.js:
```
sudo n stable
```

Now the latest version of Node.js was installed. Check the version using:

node -v

edited Jun 21, 2019 at 7:33

link

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answered May 21, 2019 at 9:43

Anandhu Raj

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1 Comment

Lenzman Over a year ago

Worked! Great..

Irfan wani · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-01 10:01:41Z

6

In case it's installed by using snap,

sudo ln -sfn /snap/node/current/bin/node /usr/bin/node

edited May 1, 2022 at 10:01

Irfan wani

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answered Aug 24, 2021 at 19:54

manish2aug

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Comments

Frank N · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-28 14:46:50Z

4

While ln -s is the obvious easiest fix, a piece of explanation:

Because of a conflict with another package, the executable from the Ubuntu repositories is called nodejs instead of node. Keep this in mind as you are running software.

This advice comes up, when installing sudo apt-get install nodejs.

So some other known tool (I don't know what it does. While being known to ubuntu repositories, it is not installed by default in 16.04) occupies that namespace.

Would have been nice, if Ubuntu had offered an advice how to fix this 'cleanly', if not by doing by hand what otherwise the package would do. (a collision remains a collision... if+when it would occur)

answered Oct 28, 2016 at 14:46

Frank N

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1 Comment

kervin Over a year ago

@tom-hale answer is the Ubuntu way for this. You use alternatives to specify the correct node

KARTHIKEYAN.A · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-24 11:22:36Z

2

sudo PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin" npm install -g <package-name>

answered Mar 24, 2017 at 11:22

KARTHIKEYAN.A

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Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

2

For my case link did NOT work as follow

ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

But you can open /usr/local/bin/lessc as root, and change the first line from node to nodejs.

-#!/usr/bin/env node

+#!/usr/bin/env nodejs

edited Jun 20, 2020 at 9:12

CommunityBot

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answered Dec 8, 2017 at 11:00

Tanvir Ahmad

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Comments

paisuchen · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-05 15:44:45Z

2

it's been 7 years ago and the problems still relevant and occurred.

Oke here my problem, it's similar but not exactly the same.

When I call this command from Jenkins

ssh [email protected] "pm2 restart app"

then error /usr/bin/env Node No Such file or directory

Then here my solution:

on server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

It relink /usr/bin/node

First: I remove the existing one with command "rm -f /usr/bin/node"

Second: I create new link with this command "ln -s /root/.nvm/versions/node/v14.17.4/bin/node /usr/bin/node"

Node version it's depends on your installation. May it help.

THe bottom line for this error is link of node.

answered Oct 5, 2022 at 15:44

paisuchen

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Comments

Shalauddin Ahamad Shuza · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-29 19:44:12Z

0

Just rename the command or file name ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node by this command

answered Apr 29, 2018 at 19:44

Shalauddin Ahamad Shuza

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Comments

Blackbam · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-14 17:32:45Z

For me the accepted answer did not yet work. I started off as suggested here:

ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

After doing this I was getting the following error:

/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js:85 let notifier = require('update-notifier')({pkg}) ^^^

SyntaxError: Block-scoped declarations (let, const, function, class) not yet supported outside strict mode at exports.runInThisContext (vm.js:53:16) at Module._compile (module.js:374:25) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:417:10) at Module.load (module.js:344:32) at Function.Module._load (module.js:301:12) at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:442:10) at startup (node.js:136:18) at node.js:966:3

The solution was to download the most recent version of node from https://nodejs.org/en/download/ .

Then I did:

sudo tar -xf node-v10.15.0-linux-x64.tar.xz --directory /usr/local --strip-components 1

Now the update was finally successful: npm -v changed from 3.2.1 to 6.4.1

WannaGetHigh · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-10 09:55:36Z

0

For those who have installed NodeJS with nvm.

If like me you have installed, uninstalled, reinstalled some versions you simply need to do this :

nvm use v14.21.1

Or whatever version you are using.

This will recreate the links to node and npm commands that where lost during your 'cleanup' :D

answered Nov 10, 2022 at 9:55

WannaGetHigh

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David · Accepted Answer · 2024-03-14 09:30:11Z

-1

sudo nautilus

Open file manager as admin. Go to /usr/bin and search node.That might have been broken link, so delete it. Now try installing your package. It might work -worked for me

edited Mar 14, 2024 at 9:30

David

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answered Aug 11, 2022 at 17:02

Rupak

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