11

I get this error if I run 

curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

even with sudo.

    cirk@cirk-Parallels-Virtual-Platform:~$ curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  3902  100  3902    0     0   6138      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 12546
fetching: http://registry.npmjs.org/npm/-/npm-1.0.18.tgz
0.4.9
1.0.18
Skipping 0.x cruft clean
! [ -d .git ] || git submodule update --init --recursive
node cli.js cache clean
node cli.js rm npm -g -f --loglevel error
node cli.js install -g -f
npm ERR! error installing [email protected] Error: EACCES, Permission denied '../lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm.js'
npm ERR! Error: EACCES, Permission denied '../lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm.js'
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Please use 'sudo' or log in as root to run this command.
npm ERR! 
npm ERR!     sudo npm "install" "-g" "-f"
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! or set the 'unsafe-perm' config var to true.
npm ERR! 
npm ERR!     npm config set unsafe-perm true
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! System Linux 2.6.38-10-generic
npm ERR! command "node" "/tmp/npm.1568/package/cli.js" "install" "-g" "-f"
npm ERR! cwd /tmp/npm.1568/package
npm ERR! node -v v0.4.9
npm ERR! npm -v 1.0.18
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /tmp/npm.1568/package/npm-debug.log
npm not ok
It worked

What should I do? I tried these with no success:

chown -R cirk /usr/lib/nodejs
// and also this
chown -R cirk /usr/lib/node_modules (node_modules is empty it tries to install NPM here or what)

actually it did something, as you can see it writes at the end It worked what is a big lie!

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11
  • 1
    Been getting the same thing myself recently... Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 19:23
  • cool :) I´m getting tired here, I tried to fix it all the day, maybe some smart guys can help here :( Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 19:25
  • Did you try following the instructions in the error message (setting the unsafe-perm config var to true)? Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 19:26
  • 1
    Follow-up question: Is it Safe to chown on /usr/lib? Judging by this transcript, the installation script looks quite broken, both because it's apparently trying to write to /usr/lib (which is reserved for package managers, manual installations should go under /usr/local) and because it doesn't have proper error detection (the “It worked” bit). Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 20:56
  • 1
    It IS quite broken. The whole notion of running a shell script as root that you pull right off some site with curl is broken. Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 3:35

2 Answers 2

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18

Why are you running that in /usr?

If you really need to, this page suggests you may run that as root, so that would be:

curl https://www.npmjs.com/install.sh | sudo sh

But you better make sure it won't break your system, before running that.

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3 Comments

maaan this worked, looool, ftw? I always put the sudo before the curl :)) I didń´t even noticed that sh is a command too, :D maan I´m very happy because I always had this issue when I installed NPM, and now I know why I failed.
@alex: the (recommended) default install of NPM puts stuff in /usr/lib.
I believe latest npm does not mind if you run as root => pastebin.com/BX9NVqF4
2

I screwed up the permissions on my npm installation, and had this error when reinstalling. I solved it in the crudest way: by liberally sudo rm -rfing any directory tree that gave me trouble, then recompiling node.js and reinstalling npm.

If all else fails, you could fall back to that.

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1 Comment

I used sudo rm -rf ~/.npm and then was able to install.

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