puppet-nodejs

This module allows you to install Node.js and NPM. This module is published on the Puppet Forge as willdurand/nodejs.

Announcements

• The latest release is 2.1.

• On master development is happening for 2.2.

• Legacy 1.9 is still maintained, but won't receive any new features.

• For further information, please look at the Support chapter.

Installation

The module depends on the following well-adopted and commonly used modules:

• puppetlabs/stdlib

The easiest approach to install this module is by using r10k:

forge 'http://forge.puppetlabs.com'

mod 'willdurand/nodejs', '2.0.3'
mod 'puppetlabs/stdlib', '5.1.0'

Usage

Deploying a precompiled package

There are a few ways to use this puppet module. The easiest one is just using the class definition and specify a value for the version to install.

class { 'nodejs':
  version => latest,
}

This installs the latest precompiled version available on nodejs.org/dist. node and npm will be available in your $PATH at /usr/local/bin.

There are several ways to specify a target version of node:

• version => latest installs the latest version available.
• version => lts installs the latest long-term support version.
• version => '9.x' installs the latest version from the v9 series.
• version => '9.7 installs the latest 9.7 patch release.
• version => '9.9.0' installs exactly this version.

Compiling from source

In order to compile from source with gcc, the make_install option must be true.

class { 'nodejs':
  version      => 'lts',
  make_install => true,
}

Using a custom source

It's also possible to deploy NodeJS instances to Puppet nodes from your own server. This can be helpful when e.g. distributing your own, patched version of NodeJS.

The source can be specified like this:

class { '::nodejs':
  source => 'https://example.org/your-custom-nodejs-binaries.tar.gz',
}

It's also possible to compile the custom instance from source which is helpful when e.g. deploying a patched NodeJS:

class { '::nodejs':
  source       => 'https://example.org/node-11.0.0.tar.gz',
  make_install => true,
}

Please note that the source needs to be a compressed tarball, but it doesn't matter which format is in use (.xz,.gz etc). However additional packages such as xz-utils for Debian have to be installed manually if needed (e.g. when providing a custom source which is bundled as .tar.xz).

Setup with a given download timeout

Due to infrastructures with slower connections the download timeout of the nodejs binaries can be increased or disabled:

class { '::nodejs':
  download_timeout => 0,
}

For further information please refer to the timeout docs in Puppet.

Setup multiple versions of Node.js

If you need more than one installed version of Node.js on your machine, you can configure them using the instances list.

class { '::nodejs':
  version => lts,
  instances => {
    "node-lts" => {
      version => lts
    },
    "node-9" => {
      version => '9.x'
    }
  },
}

This will install the three specified versions (latest version, current LTS version and latest 9.x of NodeJS) in /usr/local/node.

Important is that the default node and npm executable's versions need to be specified as hash in the instances list.

The structure of linked executables in /usr/local/bin will look like this:

/usr/local/bin/node           # latest (default, linked to LTS in this case)
/usr/local/bin/node-v9.x.x    # latest 9.x
/usr/local/bin/node-v8.x.x    # latest LTS (ATM)

/usr/local/bin/npm            # NPM shipped with v8.x.x
/usr/local/bin/npm-v9.x.x     # NPM shipped with NodeJS 9.x
/usr/local/bin/npm-v8.x.x     # NPM shipped with NodeJS LTS

It is also possible to remove a single version like this:

class { '::nodejs':
  # ...
  instances_to_remove => ['9.x.x'],
}

Please keep in mind that instances_to_remove doesn't remove version specifier like lts or latest.

Setup using custom amount of cpu cores

By default, all available cpu (that are detected using the ::processorcount fact) cores are being used to compile nodejs. Set cpu_cores to any number of cores you want to use. This is mainly intended for the use with make_install => true for parallelisation purposes.

class { 'nodejs':
  version      => 'lts',
  cpu_cores    => 2,
  make_install => true,
}

Configuring $NODE_PATH

The environment variable $NODE_PATH can be configured using the init manifest:

class { '::nodejs':
  version   => 'lts',
  node_path => '/your/custom/node/path',
}

It is not possible to adjust a $NODE_PATH through ::nodejs::install.

Binary path

node and npm are linked to /usr/local/bin to be available in your system $PATH by default. To link those binaries to a different directory such as /bin, the parameter target_dir can be modified accordingly:

class { 'nodejs':
  version    => 'lts',
  target_dir => '/bin',
}

NPM Provider

NPM packages can be installed just like any else package using Puppet's package type, but with a special provider, namely npm:

package { 'express':
  provider => npm
}

Note: When deploying a new machine without nodejs already installed, your npm package definition requires the nodejs class:

class { 'nodejs':
  version => 'lts'
}

package { 'express':
  provider => 'npm',
  require  => Class['nodejs']
}

NPM installer (deprecated)

Note: this API is deprecated and will be removed in 3.0. It's recommended to either package your applications properly using npm and install them as package using the npm provider or to directly run npm install when deploying your application (e.g. with a custom Puppet module).

This module is focused on setting up an environment with nodejs, application deployment should be handled in its own module. In the end this was just a wrapper on top of npm which runs an exec with npm install and a configurable user and lacks proper ensure => absent support.

The nodejs installer can be used if a npm package should not be installed globally, but in a certain directory.

There are two approaches how to use this feature:

Installing a single package into a directory

::nodejs::npm { 'npm-webpack':
  ensure    => present, # absent would uninstall this package
  pkg_name  => 'webpack',
  version   => 'x.x',               # optional
  options   => '-x -y -z',          # CLI options passed to the "npm install" cmd, optional
  exec_user => 'vagrant',           # exec user, optional
  directory => '/target/directory', # target directory
  home_dir  => '/home/vagrant',     # home directory of the user which runs the installation (vagrant in this case)
}

This would install the package webpack into /target/directory with version x.x.

Executing a package.json file

::nodejs::npm { 'npm-install-dir':
  list      => true,       # flag to tell puppet to execute the package.json file
  directory => '/target',
  exec_user => 'vagrant',
  options   => '-x -y -z',
}

Proxy

When your puppet agent is behind a web proxy, export the http_proxy environment variable:

export http_proxy=http://myHttpProxy:8888

Skipping package setup

As discussed in willdurand/composer#44 each module should get a build_deps parameter which can be used in edge cases in order to turn the package setup of this module off:

class { '::nodejs':
  build_deps => false,
}

In this case you'll need to take care of the following packages:

• tar
• wget
• make (if make_install = true)
• gcc compiler (if make_install = true)

Hacking

The easiest way to get started is using bundler:

bundle install
bundle exec rake test
PUPPET_INSTALL_TYPE=agent BEAKER_setfile=spec/acceptance/nodesets/ubuntu-1804-x64.yml bundle exec rake acceptance

Note: to run the acceptance tests that are part of rake's test target, Docker is required.

Authors

• William Durand (william.durand1@gmail.com)
• Johannes Graf (@grafjo)
• Maximilian Bosch (@Ma27)

Support

There are currently two main branches available, namely the 1.9 branch and 2.x. The support lifecycle is planned like this:

• There's currently no plan to completely drop 1.9. If there's demand for simple bugfixes or security-related problems, patches will be accepted and released, however there won't be any active feature development.

• Each release of 2.x is supported until the next after the next release is published. So e.g. 2.0 is supported until 2.2 is published. Each release has its own branch where bugfixes can be backported, on master the next minor or major release is developed.

• There's currently no plan for a next major release.

License

puppet-nodejs is released under the MIT License. See the bundled LICENSE file for details.