asdf-nodejs

Node.js plugin for asdf version manager

The plugin properly validates OpenPGP signatures to check the authenticity of the package. Requires gpg to be available during package installs

Requirements

macOS

• GnuPG - brew install gpg
• awk - any posix compliant implementation (tested on gawk brew install gawk)

Linux (Debian)

• dirmngr - apt-get install dirmngr
• GnuPG - apt-get install gpg
• curl - apt-get install curl
• awk - any posix compliant implementation (tested on gawk apt-get install gawk)

Install

After installing asdf, install the plugin by running:

asdf plugin-add nodejs https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-nodejs.git

We also support auto-reshimming of global npm package installations via a custom npm wrapper For setting auto-reshiming, link the wrapper file somewhere into the path before the asdf shims directory, or simply add the following lines to your .bashrc/.zshrc configuration after activating asdf:

asdf list nodejs > /dev/null 2>&1 && \
    PATH="$(asdf nodejs wrappers-path):$PATH"

Explanation:

Reshimming is the process of telling asdf to search for globally installed binaries, if we run npm install -g typescript we need to tell asdf to search for global installed binaries (), so that he can link them correctly with nodejs version changes,tsc the Typescript compiler will be found and shimmed by asdf in this example.

This step is necessary because of the high dynamicity of nodejs version switching

Use

Check asdf readme for instructions on how to install & manage versions of Node.js.

When installing Node.js using asdf install, you can pass custom configure options with the following env vars:

• NODEJS_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS - use only your configure options
• NODEJS_EXTRA_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS - append these configure options along with ones that this plugin already uses
• NODEJS_CHECK_SIGNATURES - strict is default. Other values are no and yes. Checks downloads against OpenPGP signatures from the Node.js release team.
• NODEJS_ORG_MIRROR - official mirror https://nodejs.org/dist/ is default. If you are in China, you can set it to https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/node/.

.nvmrc and .node-version files

asdf uses the .tool-versions for auto-switching between software versions. To ease migration, you can have it read an existing .nvmrc or .node-version file to find out what version of Node.js should be used. To do this, add the following to $HOME/.asdfrc:

legacy_version_file = yes

Default npm Packages

asdf-nodejs can automatically install a set of default set of npm package right after installing a Node.js version. To enable this feature, provide a $HOME/.default-npm-packages file that lists one package per line, for example:

lodash
request
express

You can specify a non-default location of this file by setting a ASDF_NPM_DEFAULT_PACKAGES_FILE variable.

Problems with OpenPGP signatures in older versions

The plugin automatically imports the NodeJS release team's OpenPGP keys. If you are trying to install a previous release and facing any issue about verification, import the Node.js previous release team's OpenPGP keys to main keyring:

bash -c '${ASDF_DATA_DIR:=$HOME/.asdf}/plugins/nodejs/bin/import-previous-release-team-keyring'

Using a dedicated OpenPGP keyring

The bash script mentioned in the installation instructions (import-release-team-keyring) imports the OpenPGP public keys in your main OpenPGP keyring. However, you can also use a dedicated keyring in order to mitigate this issue.

To use a dedicated keyring, prepare the dedicated keyring and set it as the default keyring in the current shell:

export GNUPGHOME="${ASDF_DIR:-$HOME/.asdf}/keyrings/nodejs" && mkdir -p "$GNUPGHOME" && chmod 0700 "$GNUPGHOME"

# Imports Node.js release team's OpenPGP keys to the keyring
bash ~/.asdf/plugins/nodejs/bin/import-release-team-keyring

Again, if you used brew to manage the asdf installation use the following bash commands:

export GNUPGHOME="bash /usr/local/opt/asdf/keyrings/nodejs" && mkdir -p "$GNUPGHOME" && chmod 0700 "$GNUPGHOME"

# Imports Node.js release team's OpenPGP keys to the keyring
bash /usr/local/opt/asdf/plugins/nodejs/bin/import-release-team-keyring

Related notes

• Verifying Node.js Binaries.
• Only versions >=0.10.0 are checked. Before that version, signatures for SHA2-256 hashes might not be provided (and can not be installed with the strict setting for that reason).

This behavior can be influenced by the NODEJS_CHECK_SIGNATURES env var which supports the following options:

• strict - (default): Check signatures/checksums and don’t operate on package versions which did not provide signatures/checksums properly (< 0.10.0).
• no - Do not check signatures/checksums
• yes- Check signatures/checksums if they should be present (enforced for >= 0.10.0)