How to install npm in alpine linux

So I can't get to install npm in alpine linux. I thought perhaps I can just do a apk add npm but apparently apk search npm returns nothing, even after a apk update. I'm experimenting with all this from the nginx:alpine docker image, i.e. docker run -it nginx:alpine /bin/sh

Edit 1: I can see how the nodejs:alpine dockerfile builds node, but I don't understand how it builds npm

Edit 2: now that I know that npm gets installed with nodejs on alpine, and just for clarification, the reason this wasn't evident to me at first is that on ubuntu 14.04 a sudo apt-get install nodejs would still require a sudo apt-get install npm (which installs development packages e.g. gcc)

7 Answers

For the recent versions of Alpine (v3.8+) the correct way to install nodejs with npm is:

apk add --update nodejs npm

However, npm package depends on nodejs, so you can do:

apk add --update npm

Note: since Alpine 3.8 there is no nodejs-npm package.

5

I had an issue with the apk manager.

The package nodejs is no longer installing NPM (see pkgs.alpinelinux.org) You have to install nodejs-npm

apk add --update nodejs nodejs-npm

6

I could be wrong, but I think npm is actually a dependency of nodejs.

I've never seen any flavor of package manager install npm alone. Always seems to come packaged with yum install nodejs, or apt-get install nodejs, or apk add --update nodejs.

4

apk update && apk add nodejs installed the npm binary for me.

1

The issue here is a recent one and is due to changes in Alpine's package repositories between v3.5 and v3.6 or edge.

In v3.5 nodejs included npm In v3.6 nodesjs does not include npm and the new nodejs-npm package exists.

See here for Alpine packages. To see what version of packages you are pulling from look at the contents of /etc/apk/repositories

npm comes hand in hand with nodejs. In the case you cant install node with apk add nodejs, you need fix that first. Step 1 - do you have the community repo added to your /etc/apk/repositories list? If not, it is very useful to do so. Further details:

1

I have just had to this and can confirm that npm is not a dependency of node.js (at least right now on alpine) and must be installed seperately

i.e apk add --update npm

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