Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Install NodeJS & NPM on PogoPlug/Dockstar (Debian Wheezy)

Prerequisites:
My Pogoplug is running Debian Wheezy with a custom 3.14 Kernel (see other posts in this blog for install instructions).

Installing NodeJS


NodeJS is now part of the wheezy-backports repository, so this installation is pretty straightforward.

1. edit /etc/apt/sources.list, add the following line:
deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main contrib non-free

2. Install the package
apt-get install nodejs
3. check version:
nodejs -v

NOTE: the debian binary is called "nodejs" and not "node" because of a naming conflict with an existing package called "node" (HAM radio related).
This can lead to issues down the road (e.g with the npm install)
One work-around is to create a symbolic link:
as root:  
ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/local/bin/node
as non-root :
ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs ~/bin/node 


Installing NPM


Unfortunately, npm is not backported to wheezy, so we build from scratch.
Some more info: Install Node.js & NPM on Debian Wheezy


1. make sure SSL certificates are installed
apt-get install ca-certificates

2. get the npm install shell script
cd /tmp
wget https://www.npmjs.org/install.sh --no-check-certificates

(NOTE: I had to add the --no-check-certificates option even though I had the latest ca-certificates installed)

3. edit the install.sh script (if necessary)
I had to add the -k parameter to all the instances where "curl" was called to bypass the certificate checking.

4. run the NPM install script

sh install.sh

You should get a message like "It worked".

5. verify version
npm -v