node-build is a command-line utility that makes it easy to install virtually any version of Node, from source or precompiled binary.

It is available as a plugin for nodenv that provides the nodenv install command, or as a standalone program.

• Installation
  • Upgrading
    • Updating available build versions
• Usage
  • Basic Usage
  • Advanced Usage
    • Binaries
    • Custom Build Definitions
    • Custom Build Configuration
    • Applying Patches
    • Checksum Verification
    • Package Mirrors
    • Keeping the build directory after installation
    • Retry installation without v/node-/node-v prefix
• Getting Help
• Credits

# Using Homebrew on macOS
$ brew install node-build

# As a nodenv plugin
$ mkdir -p "$(nodenv root)"/plugins
$ git clone https://github.com/nodenv/node-build.git "$(nodenv root)"/plugins/node-build

# As a standalone program
$ git clone https://github.com/nodenv/node-build.git
$ PREFIX=/usr/local ./node-build/install.sh

# Via Homebrew
$ brew update && brew upgrade node-build

# As a nodenv plugin
$ git -C "$(nodenv root)"/plugins/node-build pull

To grab the latest versions from nodejs.org and generate definition files for node-build to use, check out the node-build-update-defs plugin. Once installed:

nodenv update-version-defs

No need to wait for node-build to provide the latest definitions!

# As a nodenv plugin
$ nodenv install --list                    # lists all available versions of Node
$ nodenv install 10.13.0                   # installs Node 10.13.0 to ~/.nodenv/versions

# As a standalone program
$ node-build --definitions                 # lists all available versions of Node
$ node-build 10.13.0 ~/local/node-10.13.0  # installs Node 10.13.0 to ~/local/node-10.13.0

node-build does not check for system dependencies before downloading and attempting to compile the Node source. Please ensure that all requisite libraries are available on your system.

By default, node-build will attempt to match one of the precompiled binaries to your platform. If there is a binary for your platform, it will install it instead of compiling from source. To force compilation, pass the -c or --compile flag.

If you wish to develop and install a version of Node that is not yet supported by node-build, you may specify the path to a custom “build definition file” in place of a Node version number.

Use the default build definitions as a template for your custom definitions.

The build process may be configured through the following environment variables:

Both nodenv install and node-build support the --patch (-p) flag to apply a patch to the Node (/iojs/chakracore) source code before building. Patches are read from STDIN:

# applying a single patch
$ nodenv install --patch 11.1.0 < /path/to/node.patch

# applying a patch from HTTP
$ nodenv install --patch 11.1.0 < <(curl -sSL http://git.io/node.patch)

# applying multiple patches
$ cat fix1.patch fix2.patch | nodenv install --patch 11.1.0

If you have the shasum, openssl, or sha256sum tool installed, node-build will automatically verify the SHA2 checksum of each downloaded package before installing it.

Checksums are optional and specified as anchors on the package URL in each definition. All definitions bundled with node-build include checksums.

By default, node-build downloads package files from the official URL specified in the definition file.

 # example:
 install_package "node-v12.0.0" "https://nodejs.org/dist/v12.0.0/node-v12.0.0.tar.gz#<SHA2>"

node-build will attempt to construct a mirror url by invoking NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_CMD with two arguments: package_url and checksum. The provided command should print the desired mirror's complete package URL. If NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_CMD is unset, package mirror URL construction defaults to replacing https://nodejs.org/dist with NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL.

node-build will first try to fetch this package from $NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL/<SHA2> (note: this is the complete URL), where <SHA2> is the checksum for the file.

It will fall back to downloading the package from the original location if:

• the package was not found on the mirror;
• the mirror is down;
• the download is corrupt, i.e. the file's checksum doesn't match;
• no tool is available to calculate the checksum; or
• NODE_BUILD_SKIP_MIRROR is enabled.

You may specify a custom mirror by setting NODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL.

Both node-build and nodenv install accept the -k or --keep flag, which tells node-build to keep the downloaded source after installation. This can be useful if you need to use gdb and memprof with Node.

Source code will be kept in a parallel directory tree $(nodenv root)/sources when using --keep with the nodenv install command. You should specify the location of the source code with the NODE_BUILD_BUILD_PATH environment variable when using --keep with node-build.

The nodenv-install plugin can attempt a retry if the installation failed due to a missing definition file. If the given node version name begins with 'v', 'node', or 'node-v', the retry will drop the prefix and try again. For instance, if nodenv install node-v11.0.0 fails because a definition file does not exist by the name "node-v11.0.0", it will retry as "11.0.0". For this retry to be attempted, the environment variable NODENV_PREFIX_RETRY must be non-empty.

Please see the node-build wiki for solutions to common problems. Also, check out the ruby-build wiki.

If you can't find an answer on the wiki, open an issue on the issue tracker. Be sure to include the full build log for build failures.

Forked from Sam Stephenson's ruby-build by Will McKenzie and modified for node.