grpc install fails: "node-pre-gyp: Permission denied" but for global install only?

[stephenplusplus]

Copied from original issue: googleapis/nodejs-speech#29

@talkingnews
February 19, 2018 4:36 PM

Environment details

• OS: Ubuntu 17.10 4.13.0-32-generic Working on getting Kokoro to run properly on the repository. #35-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 25 09:13:46 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
• Node.js version: 8.9.4
• npm version: 5.6.0
• @google-cloud/speech version: 1.1.0

Steps to reproduce

1. npm install -g @google-cloud/speech

Results below - this looks like the same issue as these:
grpc/grpc#13928
googleapis/gax-nodejs#173

Strangely, installing it locally (without -g) works, but with -g, I get the following:

> grpc@1.7.3 install /root/.nvm/versions/node/v8.9.4/lib/node_modules/@google-cloud/speech/node_modules/grpc
> node-pre-gyp install --fallback-to-build --library=static_library

sh: 1: node-pre-gyp: Permission denied
npm ERR! file sh
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno ENOENT
npm ERR! syscall spawn
npm ERR! grpc@1.7.3 install: `node-pre-gyp install --fallback-to-build --library=static_library`
npm ERR! spawn ENOENT
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the grpc@1.7.3 install script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2018-02-19T16_16_46_264Z-debug.log

2018-02-19T16_16_46_264Z-debug.log

[murgatroid99]

This looks like a file system permission problem. I don't know if there's anything we can change in the package to fix that.

[murgatroid99]

@talkingnews I have figured out how to reproduce this failure: it only happens if I run the command as root. If that is what you are seeing, then you should be able to fix it either by running as a different user, or by running with the --unsafe-perm option.

[talkingnews]

Tada! Success - thank you!