How to fix npm throwing error without sudo

Question

I just installed node and npm through the package on nodejs.org, and whenever I try to search or install something with npm, it throws the following error unless I sudo the command. I have a feeling this is a permissions issue? I am already the admin.

npm ERR! Error: EACCES, open '/Users/chietala/.npm/-/all/.cache.json'
npm ERR!  { [Error: EACCES, open '/Users/chietala/.npm/-/all/.cache.json']
npm ERR!   errno: 3,
npm ERR!   code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR!   path: '/Users/chietala/.npm/-/all/.cache.json' }
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.

npm ERR! System Darwin 12.2.0
npm ERR! command "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "search" "bower"
npm ERR! cwd /Users/chietala
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.4
npm ERR! npm -v 1.2.18
npm ERR! path /Users/chietala/.npm/-/all/.cache.json
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! errno 3
npm ERR! stack Error: EACCES, open '/Users/chietala/.npm/-/all/.cache.json'
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/chietala/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

Answer 1

This looks like a permissions issue in your home directory. To reclaim ownership of the .npm directory execute:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) ~/.npm

Answer 2

Permissions you used when installing Node will be required when doing things like writing in your npm directory (npm link, npm install -g, etc.).

You probably ran Node.js installation with root permissions, that's why the global package installation is asking you to be root.

---

Solution 1: NVM

Don't hack with permissions, install Node.js the right way.

On a development machine, you should not install and run Node.js with root permissions, otherwise things like npm link, npm install -g will need the same permissions.

NVM (Node Version Manager) allows you to install Node.js without root permissions and also allows you to install many versions of Node to play easily with them.. Perfect for development.

1. Uninstall Node (root permission will probably be required). This might help you.
2. Then install NVM following instructions on this page.
3. Install Node via NVM: nvm install node

Now npm link, npm install -g will no longer require you to be root.

Edit: See also https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/fixing-npm-permissions

---

Solution 2: Install packages globally for a given user

Don't hack with permissions, install npm packages globally the right way.

If you are on OSX or Linux, you can create a user dedicated directory for your global package and setup npm and node to know how to find globally installed packages.

Check out this great article for step by step instructions on installing npm modules globally without sudo.

See also: npm's documentation on Fixing npm permissions.

Answer 3

Also you will need the write permission in node_modules directory:

sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local/lib/node_modules

Answer 4

Changing the owner on "system-global" folders is a hack. On a fresh install, I would configure NPM to use an already writable location for "user-global" programs:

npm config set prefix "${HOME}/npm"

Then make sure you add that folder to your path:

export PATH="${PATH}:${HOME}/npm/bin"

To avoid future issues, do not use sudo npm ... at all.

See @ErikAndreas' answer to NPM modules won't install globally without sudo, and longer step-by-step guide by @sindresorhus with also sets $MANPATH.

Answer 5

Watch OUT!!! Watch OUT!!! Watch OUT!!!

chown or chmod is NOT the solution, because of security-risk.

Instead do this, do:

First check, where npm point to, if you call:

npm config get prefix

If /usr is returned, you can do the following:

mkdir ~/.npm-global
export NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.npm-global
export PATH=$PATH:~/.npm-global/bin

This create a npm-Directory in your Home-Directory and point npm to it.

To got this changes permanent, you have to add the export-command to your .bashrc:

echo -e "export NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.npm-global\nexport PATH=\$PATH:~/.npm-global/bin" >> ~/.bashrc

Answer 6

I encountered this when installing Recess (https://github.com/twitter/recess) to compile my CSS for Bootstrap 3.

When installing recess:

-npm install recess -g

1. You need to unlock permissions in your home directory, like Noah says:

   sudo chown -R `whoami` ~/.npm
   

2. You also need write permissions to the node_modules directory, like Xilo says, so if it still isn't working, try:

   sudo chown -R `whoami` /usr/local/lib/node_modules
   

3. If you are still seeing errors, you may also need to correct /usr/local permissions:

   sudo chown -R `whoami` /usr/local
   

Please note that as indicated in this post /usr/local/ isn't actually a system dir if you are on a Mac, so, this answer is actually perfectly "safe" for Mac users. However, if you are on Linux, see Christopher Will's answer below for a multi-user friendly, system dir safe (but more complex) solution.

Answer 7

Other answers are suggesting to change ownerships or permissions of system directories to a specific user. I highly disadvise from doing so, this can become very awkward and might mess up the entire system!

Here is a more generic and safer approach that supports multi-user as well.

Create a new group for node-users and add the required users to this group. Then set the ownership of node-dependant files/directories to this group.

# Create new group
sudo groupadd nodegrp 

# Add user to group (logname is a variable and gets replaced by the currently logged in user)
sudo usermod -a -G nodegrp `logname`

# Instant access to group without re-login
newgrp nodegrp

# Check group - nodegrp should be listed as well now
groups

# Change group of node_modules, node, npm to new group 
sudo chgrp -R nodegrp /usr/lib/node_modules/
sudo chgrp nodegrp /usr/bin/node
sudo chgrp nodegrp /usr/bin/npm

# (You may want to change a couple of more files (like grunt etc) in your /usr/bin/ directory.)

Now you can easily install your modules as user

npm install -g generator-angular

Some modules (grunt, bower, yo etc.) will still need to be installed as root. This is because they create symlinks in /user/bin/.

Edit

3 years later I'd recommend to use Node Version Manager. It safes you a lot of time and trouble.

Answer 8

The official documentation on how to fix npm install permissions with an EACCES error is located at https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/fixing-npm-permissions.

I encountered this problem after a fresh install of node using the .pkg installer on OSX. There are some great answers here, but I didn't see a link to npmjs.com yet.

Option 1: Change the permission to npm's default directory

1. Find the path to npm's directory:

   npm config get prefix
   

For many systems, this will be /usr/local.

WARNING: If the displayed path is just /usr, switch to Option 2.

2. Change the owner of npm's directories to the name of the current user (your username!):

   sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(npm config get prefix)/{lib/node_modules,bin,share}
   

   This changes the permissions of the sub-folders used by npm and some other tools (lib/node_modules, bin, and share).

Option 2: Change npm's default directory to another directory

There are times when you do not want to change ownership of the default directory that npm uses (i.e. /usr) as this could cause some problems, for example if you are sharing the system with other users.

Instead, you can configure npm to use a different directory altogether. In our case, this will be a hidden directory in our home folder.

1. Make a directory for global installations:

   mkdir ~/.npm-global
   

2. Configure npm to use the new directory path:

   npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
   

3. Open or create a ~/.profile file and add this line:

   export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
   

4. Back on the command line, update your system variables:

   source ~/.profile
   

Answer 9

I ran into this issue, and while it's true that ~/.npm should be owned by your user, npm was not installing the modules there.

What actually solved my issue is these commands:

npm config set prefix ~/.npm
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.npm/bin"

It will make sure that all your global installation will go under this prefix. And it's important that your user owns this directory.

Answer 10

As if we need more answers here, but anyway..

Sindre Sorus has a guide Install npm packages globally without sudo on OS X and Linux outlining how to cleanly install without messing with permissions:

Here is a way to install packages globally for a given user.

1. Create a directory for your global packages

   mkdir "${HOME}/.npm-packages"
   

2. Reference this directory for future usage in your .bashrc/.zshrc:

   NPM_PACKAGES="${HOME}/.npm-packages"
   

3. Indicate to npm where to store your globally installed package. In your $HOME/.npmrc file add:

   prefix=${HOME}/.npm-packages
   

4. Ensure node will find them. Add the following to your .bashrc/.zshrc:

   NODE_PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/lib/node_modules:$NODE_PATH"
   

5. Ensure you'll find installed binaries and man pages. Add the following to your .bashrc/.zshrc:

   PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/bin:$PATH"
   # Unset manpath so we can inherit from /etc/manpath via the `manpath`
   # command
   unset MANPATH # delete if you already modified MANPATH elsewhere in your config
   MANPATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/share/man:$(manpath)"
   

Check out npm-g_nosudo for doing the above steps automagically

Checkout the source of this guide for the latest updates.

Answer 11

TL;DR

always use sudo -i or sudo -H when running npm install to install global packages.

---

When you use npm, it downloads packages to your user home directory. When you run as sudo, npm installs files to the same directory, but now they are owned by root.

So this is what happens to absolutely every single person who has ever used npm:

• install some local packages without issue using npm install foo
• install global package using sudo install -g foo-cli without issue
• attempt to install local package with npm install bar
• get frustrated at the npm designers now that you have to go chmod a directory again

When you use the -i or -H option with sudo, your home directory will be root's home directory. Any global installs will cache packages to /root/.npm instead of root-owned files at /home/me/.npm.

Just always use sudo -i or sudo -H when running npm install to install global packages and your npm permissions problems will melt away.

For good.

-- q.v. the accepted answer for fixing an already messed up npm.

Answer 12

When you run npm install -g somepackage, you may get an EACCES error asking you to run the command again as root/Administrator. It's a permissions issue.

It's easy to fix, open your terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal)

sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local/lib/node_modules

** I strongly recommend you to not use the package management with sudo (sudo npm -g install something), because you can get some issues later **

Reference: http://foohack.com/2010/08/intro-to-npm/

Answer 13

I had a similar problem at NPM modules won't install globally without sudo, the issue was that when i installed node i did it with sudo via chris/lea ppa repo.

My solution was to uninstall node and then install it this way:

Download latest stable node sources from nodejs.org #in my case node-v0.10.20.tar.gz

tar -zxf node-v0.10.20.tar.gz #uncompress sources

cd node-v0.10.20 #enter uncompressed folder

sudo chown $USER -R /usr/local

./configure --prefix=/usr/local && make && make install

PD: If you don't want to change ownership of the /usr/local folder, you can install it somewhere you already own. The problem of this approach is that you will have to bind the installation folder with the bash command line so that we can use the node command later on

mkdir ~/opt

./configure --prefix=~/opt && make && make install

echo 'export PATH=~/opt/bin:${PATH}' >> ~/.bashrc #or ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zshenv depending on the current Operative System

With either of those approaches, you will be able to do the following without using sudo

npm install -g module_to_install

Answer 14

For me, execute only

sudo chown -R $(whoami) ~/.npm

doesn't work. Then, I execute too

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/lib/node_modules/
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/bin/node
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/bin/npm

And all works fine!

Answer 15

For Mac (adopted from Christoper Will's answer)

Mac OS X 10.9.4

1. System Preference > Users & Groups > (unlock) > press + :

   New Account > "Group"
   Account Name : nodegrp

   After creating the group, tick the user to be included in this group

2. sudo chgrp -R nodegrp /usr/local/lib/node_modules/
   sudo chgrp nodegrp /usr/bin/node
   sudo chgrp nodegrp /usr/bin/npm
   sudo chown -R $(whoami):nodegrp ~/.npm

Answer 16

ISSUE: You (the user) don't have the right set of permissions for the directory.

The instant way out is to run the npm install using sudo, but this may give you the same error, or improper installation.

AND changing directory ownership is not a good option, a temporary patch.

---

Solution/Suggestion: Change npm's Default Directory (from official docs)

Back-up your computer before moving forward.

(optional) In case you have a erroneous installation, first uninstall it:

npm uninstall <package-name>  # use sudo if you used it while installation
npm cache verify  # or, npm cache clean for npm version below 5.x.x 

1. Make a directory for global installations:

   mkdir ~/.npm-global

2. Configure npm to use the new directory path:

   npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'

3. Open or create a ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile file and add this line:

   export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH

4. Back on the command line, update your system variables, or restart the terminal:

   source ~/.profile

5. (optional) Test: Download a package globally without using sudo.

   npm install -g jshint

Answer 17

In my case,it's because of the permission of ~/tmp.So I do:

sudo chown -R $USER ~/tmp

And it's OK!

Answer 18

Problem: You do not have permission to write to the directories that npm uses to store global packages and commands.

Solution: Allow permission for npm.

Open a terminal:

command + spacebar then type 'terminal'

Enter this command:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(npm config get prefix)/{lib/node_modules,bin,share}

• Note: this will require your password.

This solution allows permission to ONLY the directories needed, keeping the other directories nice and safe.

Answer 19

Another great fix here to configure NPM properly, run the following commands :

npm config set prefix '~/.npm_packages'
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.npm_packages/bin; export PATH

Answer 20

Best solution would be this which is provided by npm documentation.

---

For Ubuntu suggested solution is Option#2

Brief steps:
Make a directory for global installations:
mkdir ~/.npm-global

Configure npm to use the new directory path:
npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
npm config get prefix can help you to verify if prefix was updated or not. The result would be <Your Home Directory>/.npm-global

Open or create a ~/.profile file and add this line:
export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH

Back on the command line, update your system variables:
source ~/.profile

Instead of steps 2-4 you can also use the corresponding ENV variable (e.g. if you don't want to modify ~/.profile):

NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.npm-global

---

For Mac suggested solution is Option#3

On Mac OS you can avoid this problem altogether by using the Homebrew package manager

brew install node

Answer 21

In case sudo chown -R $(whoami) ~/.npm didn't work for you, or you need a non terminal command solution.

The issue is that your user account does not have write permission to node_modules folder, so you can do the following

1. Open finder and press cmd + shift + g this will open go to folder with url

2. Write the following path /usr/local/lib/node_modules and press go

3. Right click on node_modules folder and choose Get Info

4. Scroll down to sharing & permissions section

5. Unlock to be able to make changes.

6. Press + and add your user account

7. Make sure that you choose Read & Write in privilege drop down

Now you should be able to install packages without sudo and permission issues should be solved

Answer 22

Nobody mentioned this, but there is actually no need to mess up with permissions or a separate npm installation, just specifying a different cache folder to the command will fix the issue

npm install --cache .npm
npm run build --cache .npm

This will create a local .npm folder

Answer 23

simply try

npm rebuild

then after completion run your usual command

Answer 24

This is how I solved the issue on Windows 8.1:

• Go to your nodejs install (usually C:\Program Files\nodejs)
• Right click node_modules folder and go to properties
• Click the Security tab and advanced
• At the top you will see "Owner: SYSTEM", click change
• Enter the user you want permissions for and click Ok
• Check the box at the bottom of the advanced settings "Replace all child object permission entries with inheritable permission entries from this object" and click ok
• Do whatever npm install/update you need

Answer 25

you could try this, works on ubuntu and mac

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/lib/node_modules

Answer 26

use below command while installing packages

 sudo npm install --unsafe-perm=true --allow-root

Answer 27

When trying to install packages globally as root, the process will fail with EUIDLOOKUP or EACCES or npm will mess up your user global packages permissions.

To understand the problem I would suggest reading this issue. In short npm tries to use the EUID of current process to run installation scripts not as root but as the original user running npm while at the same time assuming that a user running as root would use sudo so EUID will be set.

That's why answer of @JHM16 based on using sudo should work.

But this is not the case when installing packages inside a container build. In containers sudo will be more often than not missing. And build will usually just run as root.

Of course container build can be changed to run these commands as a regular user and build everything as that user. This will not make the build more secure though and could be undesirable in some situations.

So in a container build, here's how you can make npm global install work for example with the yarn package.

# setpriv --ruid 0 --euid 0 npm --unsafe-perm install -g yarn

setpriv is a small low level utility that should be available or easily installable on any linux distro.

Answer 28

Actually, I was also having the same problem. I was running Ubuntu. Mine problem arises because I'd lost my public key of the Ubuntu. Even updating my system was not happening. It was giving GPG error. In that case, you can regain your key by using this command:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys <key in GPG error>

After that npm works fine!

Answer 29

John Papa points to the history and reasoning behind this issue and gives a solid fix:

John Papa's steps are to:

1. Use brew to install node without npm
2. Update your .bash_profile/.bashrc to let npm and node know where to install and find packages
3. Use brew to update node and npm to update itself

Hope this helps the curious!

Answer 30

@Yves M.'s answer was very similar to my solution. Here are the commands I used, which were slightly different from his.

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh | bash

Then query for the latest version:

nvm ls-remote

Then install the newest version:

nvm install YOUR_VERSION_HERE

example

nvm install v5.8.0