Installing/Building Node.js

Installing

• Linux
• Mac
• Windows
• SunOS
• Linaro Ubuntu
• Via package manager

Building

• Building Prerequisites
• Linux
• Mac
• Windows
• Cygwin

Other information

• Managing multiple versions of Visual Studio
• Upgrading on Mac with .pkg
• Known Issues

Installing on Linux

You can install a pre-built version of node.js via the downloads page available in a .tar.gz. Or you can use the automatic bash Installer.

Installing on Mac

You can install a pre-built version of node.js via the downloads page using a .pkg or available in a .tar.gz.

Installing on Windows

You can install a pre-built version of node.js via the downloads page using a .exe or a .msi.

Installing on SunOS

You can install a pre-built version of node.js via the downloads page available in a .tar.gz.

Installing on Linaro Ubuntu (ARM, UDOO)

Compiled binaries and build instructions are available here.

Installing via package manager

See Installing Node.js via package manager for more information.

Building Prerequisites

• GCC 4.2 or newer

• GNU make 3.81 or newer. Pre-installed on most systems. Sometimes called gmake.

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

• libssl-dev (Node v0.6.x only.) Can usually be installed on *NIX systems with your favorite package manager. Pre-installed on OS X.

• libexecinfo (FreeBSD and OpenBSD only.) Required by V8. pkg_add -r libexecinfo installs it.

• ICU (optional) to build the Intl (EcmaScript 402) support. See Intl for more details.

Building on Linux

There's a number of ways to install Node.js on Linux, instructions for installing Node.js on specific Linux distributions using a package manager can be found at: Installing Node.js via package manager. Note, in order to find the latest stable version of Node.js one can go to here.

The file names vary with the Node's version. The following examples are for Node v0.12.7.

Do something like this (note GNU Wget is required to use the following code):

ver=0.12.7 #Replace this with the latest version available
wget -c https://nodejs.org/dist/v$ver/node-v$ver.tar.gz #This is to download the source code.
tar -xzf node-v$ver.tar.gz
cd node-v$ver
./configure && make && sudo make install

If you are installing on an illumos 64 bit system consider the following to enable dtrace support

tar -zxf node-v0.12.7.tar.gz #Download this from nodejs.org
cd node-v0.12.7
./configure --with-dtrace --dest-cpu=x64 && 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 v0.12.7 #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 can really speed up building process by adding -j argument with a number usually approximately equals number of cores plus one, so make -j 3 would be appropriate for dual-core processor.

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 Mac

OSX 10.8 with Xcode 4.5

1. Install Command Line Tools
   Xcode: Preferences->Downloads install Command Line Tools
   Note: I installed Xcode 4.5 in /Applications/Xcode

2. Download node.js src code

git clone https://github.com/joyent/node.git
cd node
git checkout v0.8.2

1. Compiling Source Code

export CC=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/clang
export CXX=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/clang++
./configure && make && sudo make install

Building on Windows

vcbuild.bat nosign release x64 : Build in release mode in 64-bit computers

vcbuild.bat nosign debug x64 : Build in debug mode for 64-bit computers

vcbuild.bat nosign release : Build in release mode in 32-bit computers

vcbuild.bat clean : Clean Project

You need to have Microsoft Visual Studio 2012/2010 (Express edition is fine) as well as Python 2.6/2.7. Openssl is not required. Make sure that python is in your PATH.

Below is a example of what building node.js will be like in 64-bit debug mode.

c:\_GIT\node>.\vcbuild.bat debug x64
ctrpp not found in WinSDK path--using pre-gen files from tools/msvs/genfiles.
{ 'target_defaults': { 'cflags': [],
                       'default_configuration': 'Debug',
                       'defines': ['OPENSSL_NO_SSL2=1'],
                       'include_dirs': [],
                       'libraries': []},
  'variables': { 'clang': 0,
                 'host_arch': 'x64',
                 'node_install_npm': 'true',
                 'node_prefix': '',
                 'node_shared_cares': 'false',
                 'node_shared_http_parser': 'false',
                 'node_shared_libuv': 'false',
                 'node_shared_openssl': 'false',
                 'node_shared_v8': 'false',
                 'node_shared_zlib': 'false',
                 'node_tag': '',
                 'node_use_dtrace': 'false',
                 'node_use_etw': 'true',
                 'node_use_mdb': 'false',
                 'node_use_openssl': 'true',
                 'node_use_perfctr': 'true',
                 'node_use_systemtap': 'false',
                 'python': '**c:\\Python27\\python.exe**',
                 'target_arch': 'x64',
                 'v8_enable_gdbjit': 0,
                 'v8_no_strict_aliasing': 1,
                 'v8_use_snapshot': 'true',
                 'visibility': ''}}
creating  config.gypi
creating  config.mk
Project files generated.
  ares_platform.c
  inet.c
  js2c, and also js2c_experimental
  Assembling c:\_GIT\node\deps\openssl\openssl\crypto\bn\asm\x86_64-win32-masm.asm to Debug\obj\openssl\x86_64-win32-masm.obj.
  http_parser.c
  node_js2c
  ...
[Wait a few minutes]
C:\_GIT\node\Build\Debug\node.exe
> process.versions
{ http_parser: '1.0',
  node: '0.11.7-pre',
  v8: '3.20.14.1',
  uv: '0.11.9',
  zlib: '1.2.3',
  modules: '0x000C',
  openssl: '1.0.1e' }
>

The executable will be in Build\Debug\node.exe.

For running tests, more dependencies are needed. The following executables must be in the path: cat, curl, grep, head, openssl, sed and sleep. These can be acquired by:

• Downloading the binaries from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html and curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html#Win32 (make sure they are in the PATH) ;
• Installing Gow and expect test-http-curl-chunk-problem to fail because of missing openssl ;
• Installing Cygwin and run the tests from there ;
• Installing MSYS2 and run the tests from there with cmd /c "vcbuild nosign test".

In Cygwin and MSYS2, expect test-child-process-stdin to fail because of line endings. Run the tests with:

vcbuild nosign test

Building on Cygwin

Cygwin is no longer supported, despite being POSIX compliant. The latest version that compiles is 0.4.12.

wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.4.12.tar.gz
tar xvfz node-v0.4.12.tar.gz
cd node-v0.4.12/
./configure
make
make install

Other Information

Managing multiple versions of Visual Studio

Lets assume that you have two versions of Visual Studio installed. In this case, you may build against a specific Visual Studio Version. If you want to force a specific version of Visual Studio, you may use the variable GYP_MSVS_VERSION.

Example : Force Visual Studio 2012 set GYP_MSVS_VERSION=2012

Upgrading on Mac with .pkg

You can download the latest .pkg and run the installer and it will overwrite the existing version of Node currently installed.

Known Issues

On UNIX platforms, make sure that the path doesn't contain whitespace: /home/user/My Projects/node won't work.

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 that doesn't work, you can try creating symlinks to the old python in a directory which comes before python's in $PATH:

cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s /usr/bin/python2 python
ln -s /usr/bin/python2-config python-config

Remember to remove the symlinks when you're done. If you have any further installation problems stop into #node.js on irc.freenode.net and ask questions.

If you are compiling on a NFS mount and get errors at the linker stage or are getting complaints about flock not being available on your system, try changing the linker:

make LINK=g++