npm command - sudo or not? - macos

Question

Currently I always run sudo npm install <package-name> but as I understand it's not correct.
I want to have opportunity not to use it as root/Administrator.
I followed some advice and used this command sudo chown -R <username> ~/.npm but it won't work...
for example, it's an output of my npm install jade
...
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/amdefine
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/amdefine/-/amdefine-0.0.5.tgz
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/amdefine/-/amdefine-0.0.5.tgz
npm ERR! Error: EACCES, symlink '../jade/bin/jade'
npm ERR! { [Error: EACCES, symlink '../jade/bin/jade'] errno: 3, code: 'EACCES', path: '../jade/bin/jade' }
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.
as you see download started successfully but then failed..
I'm wondering what is the best way to disallow sudo on npm?

Answer 1

It's possible (and advisable) to npm install -g node modules without sudo.
Check the permission of your /usr/local/share/npm/bin folder. I had installed node and npm through brew (without sudo) and that particular folder ended up being owned by root.
This fixed it for once and for all:
$ sudo chown $(whoami) /usr/local/share/npm/bin
(As for disallowing sudo with npm: you'd have to tweak npm for that. Your own node code could make use of https://npmjs.org/package/sudo-block, npm install sudo-block)
EDIT: even though this works, I no longer use -g. Instead use prefix (see next answer), or better yet use NIX https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/381797 (even on OSX)

Answer 2

In my opinion is the cleanest way to specify the npm prefix:
npm config set prefix ~/.node_modules
And then to add the following to you .bash_profile
export PATH=$HOME/.node_modules/bin:$PATH
Now the packages will install into your user directory and no permissions will be harmend.
EDIT: If you can't install yeoman, create a bash file in one of your PATH directories named yodoctor with the following contents
#!/bin/bash
yo doctor
Make the file executable with
chmod +x yodoctor
And now you should be able to install yeoman.

Answer 3

You can also do:
sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local
and recursively change the files to your current user.

Answer 4

I have found this to be a better solution
sudo chown -R $USER /Users/$USER
This will just change the owner of your user to you and npm should be installed under your user on OS X.
Everything that I have been reading says sudo for npm installs is bad and I would have to agree with them as you open yourself up to malicious scripts.

Answer 5

The two solutions offered here are are not something I would recommend because they are brute force solutions. Instead, I recommend reading One does not simply sudo npm