User "undefined"/"nobody" does not have permission to access the dir

I’m not sure if this is a problem with a newer version of Node or this package.

This is using Docker, with image FROM node:8.1

I’m trying to globally install the spectacle-docs package npm install -g spectacle-docs. It attempts to use node-gyp at one point and cannot create a directory with user “undefined”, so it tries to use a local temp directory and then has an error about user “nobody”, and ends up going into an infinite loop trying to rebuild.

I’ve tried deleting the directory and re-doing install numerous times, no luck.

Output:

> node-sass@4.5.3 postinstall /usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-sass
> node scripts/build.js

Building: /usr/local/bin/node /usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js rebuild --verbose --libsass_ext= --libsass_cflags= --libsass_ldflags= --libsass_library=
gyp info it worked if it ends with ok
gyp verb cli [ '/usr/local/bin/node',
gyp verb cli   '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js',
gyp verb cli   'rebuild',
gyp verb cli   '--verbose',
gyp verb cli   '--libsass_ext=',
gyp verb cli   '--libsass_cflags=',
gyp verb cli   '--libsass_ldflags=',
gyp verb cli   '--libsass_library=' ]
gyp info using node-gyp@3.6.2
gyp info using node@8.1.2 | linux | x64
gyp verb command rebuild []
gyp verb command clean []
gyp verb clean removing "build" directory
gyp verb command configure []
gyp verb check python checking for Python executable "python2" in the PATH
gyp verb `which` succeeded python2 /usr/bin/python2
gyp verb check python version `/usr/bin/python2 -c "import platform; print(platform.python_version());"` returned: "2.7.9\n"
gyp verb get node dir no --target version specified, falling back to host node version: 8.1.2
gyp verb command install [ '8.1.2' ]
gyp verb install input version string "8.1.2"
gyp verb install installing version: 8.1.2
gyp verb install --ensure was passed, so won't reinstall if already installed
gyp WARN EACCES user "undefined" does not have permission to access the dev dir "/root/.node-gyp/8.1.2"
gyp WARN EACCES attempting to reinstall using temporary dev dir "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-sass/.node-gyp"
gyp verb tmpdir == cwd automatically will remove dev files after to save disk space
gyp verb command install [ '8.1.2' ]
gyp verb install input version string "8.1.2"
gyp verb install installing version: 8.1.2
gyp verb install --ensure was passed, so won't reinstall if already installed
gyp verb install version not already installed, continuing with install 8.1.2
gyp verb ensuring nodedir is created /usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-sass/.node-gyp/8.1.2
gyp WARN EACCES user "nobody" does not have permission to access the dev dir "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-sass/.node-gyp/8.1.2"
gyp WARN EACCES attempting to reinstall using temporary dev dir "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-sass/.node-gyp"
gyp verb tmpdir == cwd automatically will remove dev files after to save disk space
gyp verb command install [ '8.1.2' ]
gyp verb install input version string "8.1.2"
gyp verb install installing version: 8.1.2
gyp verb install --ensure was passed, so won't reinstall if already installed
gyp verb install version not already installed, continuing with install 8.1.2
gyp verb ensuring nodedir is created /usr/local/lib/node_modules/spectacle-docs/node_modules/node-sass/.node-gyp/8.1.2
(This will loop forever)

[phani1kumar]

You could add --unsafe to your npm install command. npm install -g your-package --unsafe

Found it via https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/1259

[asottile]

npm_config_user=root npm install -g ...

works for me