README.md

ECGALAXY nodejs

Ansible role that installs Node.js globally.

Requirements

• On Ubuntu, the gpg-agent command, which can be provided by ecgalaxy.common_packages.

Role Variables

• nodejs_version: Sets the Node.js version to install ("18.x", "20.x", etc), using the distribution package manager.

The default version is 20.x.

Optionally, in order to install a specific version from a downloadable archive, set the below variables:

• nodejs_download_url: The Node.js archive to download (see https://nodejs.org/dist/)
• nodejs_checksum: The archive checksum
• nodejs_install_path: The path where Node.js will be installed

About Node.js 18.x, 20.x and 22.x on Amazon Linux 2

Official Node.js 18.x, 20.x and 22.x pre-built binaries cannot be used on Amazon Linux 2, due to binary incompatibilities (missing glibc symbol versions).

AWS recommends to build those Node.js versions from source, when using Amazon Linux 2 (AL2).

Pre-built Node.js 18x, 20.x and 22.x binaries for Amazon Linux 2 can be found at https://code.europa.eu/ecgalaxy/amazonlinux2-nodejs/-/packages

They are downloaded by this Ansible role (when executed on AL2), and saved into the /opt/nodejs/<nodejs_version> folder.

Symlinks to the Node.js executables are then created in /usr/local/bin.

You may want to update your $PATH as well, pointing to the /opt/nodejs/<nodejs_version>/bin folder.

Usage with nvm has been tested successfully; the command nvm use system will correctly point to the "global" Node.js version (saved into /opt/nodejs/<nodejs_version>).

You can also execute this role to globally install 18.x, 20.x and 22.x, then overwrite the contents of ~/.nvm/versions/node/v<nodejs_version> for each, which will allow switching from one version to another with nvm use.

Dependencies

• optional: ecgalaxy.bootstrap
• optional: ecgalaxy.common_packages

Example Playbook

- hosts: all
  roles:
    - ecgalaxy.bootstrap
    - ecgalaxy.common_packages
    - ecgalaxy.nodejs

One-liner

To globally install the default Node.js version:

bash <(curl -s https://code.europa.eu/-/snippets/1/raw/main/ansible-role.sh) ecgalaxy.nodejs

To globally install Node.js 18.x:

bash <(curl -s https://code.europa.eu/-/snippets/1/raw/main/ansible-role.sh) ecgalaxy.nodejs --extra-vars '{"nodejs_version":"18.x"}'

See ansible-role for instructions.

Please verify the script integrity first.

License

Copyright the European Union 2022.

Licensed under the EUPL-1.2 or later.

Author Information

ECGALAXY team.

NOTE: This role is based on original work by Jeff Geerling.