Errors on trying to get a list of installed modules on openshift/nodejs

Question

Trying to setup a simple node app hosted on openshift - using the restify and mongojs modules. The only change I have made to the app is adding

"restify": "latest",
"mongojs": "latest"

to the dependencies section in the package.json, followed by a git push.

Since I want to setup a local dev/testing environment as well, am using the documentation provided at http://openshift.github.io/documentation/oo_cartridge_guide.html#local-development-testing

as described in the docs - if I run

ssh <uid>@<appname>.rhcloud.com npm list -g

I get a long list of errors ending with

npm WARN unmet dependency /opt/rh/nodejs010/root/usr/lib/node_modules/ws requires options@'latest' but will load 
npm WARN unmet dependency /opt/rh/nodejs010/root/usr/lib/node_modules/options, 
npm WARN unmet dependency which is version 0.0.5 
npm ERR! missing: npm@*, required by undefined@undefined 
npm ERR! missing: openshift-node-web-proxy@*, required by undefined@undefined 
npm ERR! invalid: options@0.0.5 /opt/rh/nodejs010/root/usr/lib/node_modules/options 
npm ERR! not ok code 0

The error body contains a lot of errors like ...

glob error { [Error: EACCES, readdir '/opt/rh/nodejs010/root/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/man/man3/whoami.3']
  errno: 3,
  code: 'EACCES',
  path: '/opt/rh/nodejs010/root/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/man/man3/whoami.3' }
glob error { [Error: EACCES, readdir '/opt/rh/nodejs010/root/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/man/man3/whoami.3']
  errno: 3,
  code: 'EACCES',
  path: '/opt/rh/nodejs010/root/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/man/man3/whoami.3' }

What is the recommended course of action? How to fix these errors? Is the application in a broken state?

Answer 1

On Openshift, you cannot should not install stuff globally.

Use instead local module, and if you need to run executables (like coffee, mocha, grunt...), launch them from the node_modules\.bin folder.

--- EDIT ---

As said in the official documentation, it's possible to install stuff globally, but it's not recommended. I guess you should have sufficient right.

the better alternative though is to install them in the home directory of the currently logged user on your local machine/workstation.

If you really need stuff on global, consider putting them into your cartdrige: it will be more handy when scalling on different VMs