Installation permission problems

When I tried to install via npm, both installation and uninstall fails with permission errors. Even though I’m the root, script is not able to run as su. Trying with sudo also fails. Deleting current .mongorc.js file does not solve the problem.

> mongo-hacker@0.0.12 install /usr/lib/node_modules/mongo-hacker
> make install

cat config.js base.js hacks/color.js hacks/common.js hacks/aggregation.js hacks/old_aggregation.js hacks/uuid.js hacks/find_and_modify.js hacks/prompt.js hacks/auto_complete.js hacks/dbref.js hacks/helpers.js hacks/cmd_search.js hacks/show.js hacks/verbose.js hacks/api.js hacks/index_paranoia.js hacks/sh_status.js hacks/count.js > mongo_hacker.js
INSTALLATION
Linking MongoHacker to .mongorc.js in your home directory:
ln -sf "/usr/lib/node_modules/mongo-hacker/mongo_hacker.js" ~/.mongorc.js
ln: failed to access ‘/root/.mongorc.js’: Permission denied
Makefile:13: recipe for target 'install' failed
make: *** [install] Error 1
npm ERR! Linux 4.2.0-16-generic
npm ERR! argv "/usr/bin/nodejs" "/usr/bin/npm" "install" "-g" "mongo-hacker"
npm ERR! node v4.3.1
npm ERR! npm  v2.14.12
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE

npm ERR! mongo-hacker@0.0.12 install: `make install`
npm ERR! Exit status 2
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the mongo-hacker@0.0.12 install script 'make install'.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the mongo-hacker package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     make install
npm ERR! You can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls mongo-hacker
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

> mongo-hacker@0.0.12 postuninstall /usr/lib/node_modules/mongo-hacker
> make uninstall

rm -f ~/.mongorc.js
rm: cannot remove ‘/root/.mongorc.js’: Permission denied
Makefile:27: recipe for target 'uninstall' failed
make: *** [uninstall] Error 1
npm WARN continuing anyway mongo-hacker@0.0.12 postuninstall: `make uninstall`
npm WARN continuing anyway Exit status 2

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /root/npm-debug.log

[gyscos]

Apparently scripts are expected to be run as user nobody if npm is run as root. The nobody user doesn’t seem to have write access to the target directory, hence the error.

A solution is to run npm as a regular user, but with write access to the install directory:

$ mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/node_modules
$ sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/lib/node_modules
$ npm install -g mongo-hacker
$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/lib/node_modules

Editted to fix permissions afterward.

Note that it’s a pretty crappy hacky workaround, far from ideal from a security viewpoint. It shouldn’t be required, and is not a real solution to this issue.

[alx741]

Same here