Installation

Building and installing Node.js

Prerequisites

• 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.

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, try this:

make LINK=g++

Building on GNU/Linux and other UNIX

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.

The filenames vary with the Node's version. The following examples are for Node v0.6.18.

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 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

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/download.

Installing on Windows

Manual install

Recommended ( Manual Install is cleaner than Automatic 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/npm/ directory contains 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, add that directory to your PATH variable, unpack npm to the same directory, and then you'll be able to run scripts (node scriptname.js) and install modules (npm install modulename) anywhere you want.

Manual update

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.

Automatic install (with Microsoft Installer)

Probably asks for cygwin packages, if not installed.

The http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/ directory contains 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.

Installing on Mac

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

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.