npm global prefix needs to be a writeable directory

npm global prefix needs to be a writeable directory

[Ryan Prior]

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Hi folks! I stumbled across an issue with the node package today and
wanted to send a report before I forget.

npm assumes that the global prefix is a writeable folder. Operations
like `npm link` will fail if it isn't. Right now our node package
doesn't set a prefix, so it defaults to the package's directory in the
store, which isn't good.

Maybe the solution is to select a folder inside the user's Guix profile
(or perhaps in their XDG_CACHE_HOME, if any) and set that explicitly as
the node global prefix using a profile hook.

In my case, I ran `npm config set prefix /home/ryan/.cache/npm` as a
workaround.

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Re: npm global prefix needs to be a writeable directory

[Jelle Licht]

Hey,

Ryan Prior <ryanprior@hey.com> writes:

> Hi folks! I stumbled across an issue with the node package today and
> wanted to send a report before I forget.
>
> npm assumes that the global prefix is a writeable folder. Operations
> like `npm link` will fail if it isn't. Right now our node package
> doesn't set a prefix, so it defaults to the package's directory in the
> store, which isn't good.

On other distros it defaults to a location that is not writable by
normal users either; it has been considered bad form to install packages
into this default global prefix using sudo for about as long as node has
been released. So I would rather say; "npm expects you to use sudo for
everything" or "npm expects you to manage your global prefix yourself"
:-)

> Maybe the solution is to select a folder inside the user's Guix profile
> (or perhaps in their XDG_CACHE_HOME, if any) and set that explicitly as
> the node global prefix using a profile hook.

Node doesn't do this on other distros either, correct?

> In my case, I ran `npm config set prefix /home/ryan/.cache/npm` as a
> workaround.

Having users set up a valid prefix is already the cannonical solution
for this exact problem, so I don't directly see why guix preventing you
from doing what you shouldn't be doing in the first place should require
extra patching.

Another way folks solved this problem has been using "nvm" which in
practice boiled down to exactly the same thing (that is, setting a
custom global prefix, just managed by nvm now).

Just my 2 cents though.

- Jelle

Re: npm global prefix needs to be a writeable directory

[Ryan Prior]

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On November 26, 2020, Jelle Licht <jlicht@fsfe.org> wrote:
> On other distros it defaults to a location that is not writable by
> normal users either;

Indeed I can confirm that Ubuntu node also has this problem.

> Node doesn't do this on other distros either, correct?
> [snip]
> Another way folks solved this problem has been using "nvm" which in
> practice boiled down to [setting a
> custom global prefix, just managed by nvm now].

I think Guix should work more like nvm than like other distros in this
case. If this is something we could handle automatically per-profile,
then that gives us the opportunity to do the right thing and save the
user some hassle.

If we decide not to go that route, I agree that we're doing no worse
than other distros that package Node. But I'm rarely satisfied with the
status quo :)

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Re: npm global prefix needs to be a writeable directory

[Jelle Licht]

Ryan Prior <ryanprior@hey.com> writes:

> On November 26, 2020, Jelle Licht <jlicht@fsfe.org> wrote:
>> On other distros it defaults to a location that is not writable by
>> normal users either;
>
> Indeed I can confirm that Ubuntu node also has this problem.
>
>> Another way folks solved this problem has been using "nvm" which in
>> practice boiled down to [setting a
>> custom global prefix, just managed by nvm now].
>
> I think Guix should work more like nvm than like other distros in this
> case. If this is something we could handle automatically per-profile,
> then that gives us the opportunity to do the right thing and save the
> user some hassle.

As long as we don't change existing behaviour by ignoring custom global
prefixes explicitly requested by the user, this seems fine to me.

Do other language-specific package managers packaged in guix not run
into similar issues?

- Jelle