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bnoordhuis edited this page Oct 14, 2011 · 81 revisions

Building and Installing Node.js

Step 1 - Pick Your Platform

Node should install out of the box on Linux, Macintosh, Solaris, and Windows.

With some effort you should be able to get it running on other Unix platforms.

Mac OSX users also have the option of installing a precompiled package from here that includes npm.

Step 2 - Prerequisites

Node has several dependencies, but fortunately most of them are distributed along with it. If you are building from source you should only need 2 things.

  • python - version 2.6 or higher. 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.

Step 3a - Installing on Unix (including BSD and Mac)

Building from source

Use make to build and install Node (execute the following on the command line)

git clone --depth 1 git://github.com/joyent/node.git # or git clone git://github.com/joyent/node.git if you want to checkout a stable tag
cd node
git checkout v0.4.12 # optional.  Note that master is unstable.
./configure
make -j2 # -j sets the number of jobs to run
[sudo] make install

NOTE: In mac OSX 10.7 compilation fails if you use make -j n , you can use make

You may wish to install Node in a custom folder instead of a global directory. If so, use something like this, after cloning and checking out:

./configure --prefix=/opt/node
make -j2 # Again, -j sets the number of jobs to run
[sudo] make install
echo 'export NODE_PATH=/opt/node:/opt/node/lib/node_modules' >> ~/.profile # ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc on some systems

You may want to put the node executables in your path as well for easier use:

echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/opt/node/bin' >> ~/.profile # ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc on some systems

To reload the path in your current instance of Terminal or bash, use:

. ~/.profile # Or ~/.bash_profile

If you have any installation problems, look at Troubleshooting Installation, try an alternative installation method, or stop into #node.js and ask questions.

The default node is not Node.js on Ubuntu/Debian; nodejs is, but is incredibly old because of the fast development pace of Node.js at this time.

Pre-built binaries

You can also install node from packages: Installing Node.js via package manager

Configure shell script for Ubuntu

Rock-solid Node.js Platform on Ubuntu. Configure shell script for install node.js using http://apptob.org

Step 3b - Building on Windows

Pre-built binaries

Windows Build (Node v0.5.9): http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.5.9/node.exe

Building with VC++

Building with Microsoft VC++ is the best way to natively compile Node starting with the 0.5.x branch. If you don't have Visual Studio you can download and use VC++ 2010 Express.

The batch file vcbuild.bat handles running gyp to generate the Visual Studio Solution files and will also run the VC++ compiler without requiring you to compile from the Visual Studio IDE. You should be able to complete the whole process and generate the Debug .exe by simply running vcbuild.bat from explorer or from the command prompt.

vcbuild.bat can be used to generate Visual Studio project files, build binaries, or both. By default it will generate project files and then build the debug version of Node. These are the command line options:

  • debug
  • release
  • clean
  • noprojgen
  • nobuild

For testing:

  • test
  • test-all
  • test-uv
  • test-internet
  • test-pummel
  • test-simple
  • test-message

Alternatively you can build Node using the MinGW toolchain: MinGW build instructions.

Cygwin can also be used but this is generally not recommended, and especially not for making native Windows binaries. Cygwin build instructions

Hosting in IIS on Windows

It is possible to host node.js application in IIS on Windows using the iisnode IIS module. More details available here.

Step 4 - Install NPM (Windows see below)

NPM is a package manager that has become the de-facto standard for installing additional node libraries and programs. Here's the quick and easy one-liner for installing on Unix.

# curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

To install a library e.g. Express:

# npm install express

And visit https://github.com/isaacs/npm for details.

NPM for Windows Native - Experimental

IMPORTANT Isaacs will explode your computer across space and time through sheer force of will if you create issues without following the instructions exactly or without fully providing the requisite debug info. This is in an early stage of functionality and will break. Make sure you're using the latest version of Node because the 0.5.x branch has seen rapid development, particularly for Windows native, with large chunks of functionality added or changed between minor releases. (0.5.8 or later recommended).

http://npmjs.org/doc/README.html#Installing-on-Windows-Experimental

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