Making Global NPM packages available to all users

Question

I am trying to install continues integration server. This server will pull data from GIT and it will try to build the application. Since I am using windows 2012 server, multiple users can trigger the build. For this purpose, I want to ensure all the node packages I install as admin are available to all users.

How can I:

1. Install node packages globally that are available to all users.
2. I want to use a locally hosted node registry. I don't want to use node registry.
3. After the installing the packages, how can I validate if all users can access the packages?

Answer 1

You can add a global environment variable NODE_PATH to set the package require search path. You may see here for more. https://gist.github.com/branneman/8048520#4-the-environment

Answer 2

Had the same issue. Needed the CI build agent to run a global package on the CLI. Saw this post in a new feature request for system-wide npm -g for Windows.

In short:

1. Open an administrator level command prompt
2. Note the current global prefix: npm prefix -g
3. Set the global prefix to the CI user: npm config set prefix <C:\Users\CI_USER\AppData\Roaming\npm>
4. Install the needed packages: npm i -g PKG
5. Restore the prefix to the previous value.

Answer 3

For the 'Network Service' account use the folder:

C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\npm