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Installation

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rishabhsrao edited this page Jul 1, 2012 · 216 revisions

Building and installing Node.js

Building requirements

Node has several dependencies. If you are building from source you should only need 2 things:

  • python - version 2.6 or 2.7, The build tools distributed with Node run on python.

  • libssl-dev - If you plan to use SSL/TLS encryption in your networking, you'll need this. Libssl is the library used in the openssl tool. On Linux and Unix systems it can usually be installed with your favorite package manager. The lib comes pre- installed on OS X.

Known Issues

If you receive an error during ./configure like this

File "/home/flo/node-v0.6.6/tools/waf-light", line 157, in <module>
     import Scripting
File "/home/flo/node-v0.6.6/tools/wafadmin/Scripting.py", line 146
     except Utils.WafError, e:
                          ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

it is because Python3 is your default Python version. To fix this issue you have to set Python2 temporary as your default Python:

export PYTHON=`which python2`

Maybe you need to change your PYTHONHOME as well. If you have any further installation problems stop into #node.js on irc.freenode.net and ask questions.

Building on GNU/Linux and other UNIX

Do something like this

tar -zxf node-v0.6.18.tar.gz #Download this from nodejs.org
cd node-v0.6.18
./configure
make
sudo make install

Or, if you'd like to install from the repository

git clone https://github.com/joyent/node.git
cd node
git checkout v0.6.18 #Try checking nodejs.org for what the stable version is
./configure
make
sudo make install

You may wish to install Node in a custom folder instead of a global directory.

./configure --prefix=/opt/node
make
sudo make install

You may want to put the node executables in your path as well for easier use. Add this line to your ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshenv

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/node/bin

If you have SpiderMonkey installed, you may have some conflicting includes. Set CXXFLAGS="-I./deps/v8/src" before building to prioritize the v8 files over SpiderMonkey's.

Or use the one liner to install the latest node.js : bash < <(curl http://h3manth.com/njs)

Building on Windows

You need python and Microsoft Visual Studio but not OpenSSL. In cmd.exe do the following

C:\Users\ryan>tar -zxf node-v0.6.5.tar.gz
C:\Users\ryan>cd node-v0.6.5
C:\Users\ryan\node-v0.6.5>vcbuild.bat release
[Wait 20 minutes]
C:\Users\ryan\node-v0.6.5>Release\node.exe
> process.versions
{ node: '0.6.5',
  v8: '3.6.6.11',
  ares: '1.7.5-DEV',
  uv: '0.6',
  openssl: '0.9.8r' }
>

The executable will be in Release\node.exe.

Installing without building

You may obtain pre-compiled Node.js binaries for several platforms from http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/.

Installing on Windows

Manual install

The http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node.exe file is a standalone Windows executable that contains only the last version of Node.js engine.

The http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/ directory does contain the latest .zip archive of npm (such as npm-1.1.16.zip when npm v1.1.16 was the latest).

Put node.exe to a clean directory, unpack npm there, add that directory to your PATH variable, and then you'll be able to run scripts (node scriptname.js) and install modules (npm install modulename) anywhere you want.

Automatic install (with Microsoft Installer)

The http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/ directory does contain the latest .msi package (such as node-v0.6.15.msi when Node v0.6.15 was the latest) that you may use to install both Node.js engine and npm.

Updating your Windows installation of Node and npm

To update Node, download the latest http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node.exe file and replace your old node.exe with it.

To update npm, run the npm update npm -g command.

Installing on Mac

The http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/ directory does contain the latest .pkg package (such as node-v0.6.15.pkg when Node v0.6.15 was the latest).

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