Here is my problem. We have a private NPM registry which only works in VPN. I would like to have a fallback registry https://registry.npmjs.org so that when I am out of VPN it works seamlessly.
P.S. Currently I am using npmrc which does a good job in switching between .npmrc files as a workaround
You can have multiple registries for scoped packages in your .npmrc
file. For example:
@polymer:registry=<url register A>
registry=http://localhost:4873/
Packages under @polymer
scope will be received from https://registry.npmjs.org, but the rest will be received from your local NPM.
On version 4.4.1, if you can change package name, use:
npm config set @myco:registry http://reg.example.com
Where @myco
is your package scope.
You can install package in this way:
npm install @myco/my-package
For more info: https://docs.npmjs.com/misc/scope
Not the best way but If you are using mac or linux even in windows you can set alias for different registries.
##############NPM ALIASES######################
alias npm-default='npm config set registry https://registry.npmjs.org'
alias npm-sinopia='npm config set registry http://localhost:4873/'
For anyone looking also for a solution for authentication, I would add on the scoped packages solution that you can have multiple lines in your .npmrc
file:
//internal-npm.example.com:8080/:_authToken=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=yyyyyyyyyy
Each line represents a different NPM registry
Since it has been a couple years and it doesn't seem possible to do this (using npm alone), a solution to this problem is to use the Nexus Repository Manager (from Sonatype). Nexus supports multiple repositories, lets you order them, and also proxies/caches to improve speed.
A free version and pro/paid version exist. The feature that supports this is described at:
https://help.sonatype.com/repomanager3/node-packaged-modules-and-npm-registries
The relevant information is duplicated below so if/when the above URL/link stops working the information is still here.
A repository group is the recommended way to expose all your npm registries repositories from the repository manager to your users, without needing any further client side configuration. A repository group allows you to expose the aggregated content of multiple proxy and hosted repositories with one URL to npm and other tools.
It lets you create private npm registries
A private npm registry can be used to upload your own packages as well as third-party packages.
And
To reduce duplicate downloads and improve download speeds for your developers and CI servers, you should proxy the registry hosted at https://registry.npmjs.org. By default npm accesses this registry directly. You can also proxy any other registries you require.
So a quick bulleted list of things you do to get this working is:
Install Nexus
Create a local/private repo (or point to your private repo on another server)
Create a GROUP that lists your private repo, and the public repo.
Configure your $HOME/.npmrc file to point to the "GROUP" just created.
Publish your private npm packages to the local repo.
Users now can run a one time setup.
npm config set registry https://nexus/content/groups/GROUP
- Then users can install both public or private packages via
npm install
.
npm install my-private-package
npm install lodash any-other-public-package
And both your public and private packages can be installed via a simple npm install
command. Nexus finds the package searching each repo configured in the group and returns the results. So npm still thinks there is just one registry but behind the curtain there are multiple repos being used.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When you publish your components, you'll need to specify the npm publish --registry https://nexus/content/repositories/private-repo my-private-package
command so your package is published to the correct repo.
Some steps you can try. (its how we do it at my workplace)
- Create a registry group with two (or more) repository source address. One would be your internal private and the other a proxy to npmjs giving priority to the internal one.
- Make this group your registry in the .npmrc file. This way npm will always try to get it from the internal one, if not found get it from the proxy
Hope that helps.
You can use multiple repositories syntax for the registry
entry in your .npmrc
file:
registry=http://serverA.url/repository-uri/
//serverB.url/repository-uri/
//serverC.url/repository-uri/:_authToken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-0000000000000
//registry.npmjs.org/
That would make your npm look for packages in different servers.
I use Strongloop's cli tools for that; see https://strongloop.com/strongblog/switch-between-configure-public-and-private-npm-registry/ for more information
Switching between repositories is as easy as : slc registry use <name>
I encounter the same problem when my company set up its own registry, so I heavily rework on proxy-registry into proxy-multi-registries to solve this problem. Hope it will also helps you.