Unable to build site in a Windows 10 environment

I'm trying to execute npm install to build the site, but I run into an error with the posix module. Relevant environment details include:

• Windows 10 Pro (x64)
• Node v0.12.7
• Visual Studio Community 2015
• Python 2.7.10

After a quick search for an answer, I came across nodejs/node-gyp#679, which had some helpful suggestions to try assorted environment configurations to get node-gyp to rebuild properly. I tried out each combination one by one but didn't have any luck.

I noticed when I bumped up my version of Node to v4.x, I get the same failures described in #419.

When executing an npm install with the environment I listed above, the main error of interest appears to be:

..\src\posix.cc(2): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'unistd.h': No such file or directory [F:\Code\projects\nodeschool.github.io\node_modules\posix\build\posix.vcxproj]

I tried obtaining unistd.h (and later getopt.c and getopt.h) to stash along with the rest of VC++ includes, but hit a road block when something was depending on sys/resources.h, something POSIX that I can't find a Windows port for.

Has anybody else run into this problem and knows if I'm missing something glaringly obvious?

[martinheidegger]

@miqid: Would you mind to send the whole error stack trace?

@martinheidegger, sure thing. Please see below.

$ npm install --msvs_version=2015
npm WARN package.json nodeschool.github.io@1.0.0 license should be a valid SPDX license expression

> posix@2.0.1 install F:\Code\projects\nodeschool.github.io\node_modules\posix
> node-gyp rebuild


F:\Code\projects\nodeschool.github.io\node_modules\posix>if not defined npm_config_node_gyp (node "C:\Dev\nvm\v0.12.7\node_modules\npm\bin\node-gyp-bin\\..\..\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" rebuild )  else (node  rebuild ) 
Building the projects in this solution one at a time. To enable parallel build, please add the "/m" switch.
  posix.cc
..\src\posix.cc(2): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'unistd.h': No such file or directory [F:\Code\projects\nodeschool.github.io\node_modules\posix\build\posix.vcxproj]
gyp ERR! build error 
gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\msbuild.exe` failed with exit code: 1
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.onExit (C:\Dev\nvm\v0.12.7\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\build.js:269:23)
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:110:17)
gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:1074:12)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 6.3.9600
gyp ERR! command "node" "C:\\Dev\\nvm\\v0.12.7\\node_modules\\npm\\node_modules\\node-gyp\\bin\\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd F:\Code\projects\nodeschool.github.io\node_modules\posix
gyp ERR! node -v v0.12.7
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v2.0.1
gyp ERR! not ok 
npm ERR! Windows_NT 6.3.9600
npm ERR! argv "C:\\Dev\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Dev\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "install" "--msvs_version=2015"
npm ERR! node v0.12.7
npm ERR! npm  v2.11.3
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE

npm ERR! posix@2.0.1 install: `node-gyp rebuild`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the posix@2.0.1 install script 'node-gyp rebuild'.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the posix package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     node-gyp rebuild
npm ERR! You can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls posix
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     F:\Code\projects\nodeschool.github.io\npm-debug.log

I also wanted to investigate further by looking into the posix module folder inside the project, but it does not exist, presumably due to the failure I'm having.

[No9]

Hi @miqid
I just tried a npm install posix on my windows machine and I see that it fails with a similar error
fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'unistd.h'

I had a look at the code and the headers in posix.cc are unix specific and are not easily ported to windows.

I would be very surprised if this project ever worked on windows.

@No9, thanks for the input.

If indeed the site can only be built inside of UNIX-like environments, I believe there should be a task to update the repository README to reflect this to spare other Windows users a wild goose chase in getting the build to work.

Alternatively, the site dependencies could be revised such that posix is no longer required, which would hopefully enable builds for Windows environments.

I'll probably go spin up a virtual machine to get the site building, but in the meanwhile I'm still interested in hearing what others might have to say.

[martinheidegger]

This issue will be solved by solving #419

[martinheidegger]

Opened PR #454 which should solve this issue.

[martinheidegger]

Should be fixed