'invalid ELF header' error when loading libyaml module

Question

When I go into node and attempt to require libyaml I get:

> require('libyaml')
Error: /home/ubuntu/shadow/node_modules/libyaml/build/Release/binding.node: invalid ELF header
at Object.Module._extensions..node (module.js:485:11)
at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
at Module.require (module.js:362:17)
at require (module.js:378:17)
at Object.<anonymous> (/home/ubuntu/shadow/node_modules/libyaml/index.js:7:15)
at Module._compile (module.js:449:26)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:467:10)
at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)

I'm using node version 0.8.12 and libyaml version 0.2.1. Curiously the error is server dependent, but it doesn't seem to be based on the version numbers, because it runs fine on one of boxes with the same versions.

Answer 1

Thanks vinayr for advising me to run npm install on the production box. The issue is that they needed to install npm differently. I resolved that with a pre-deploy command on the box as part of the deploy. Problem solved.

Answer 2

One can also use 'npm rebuild module-name' to recompile the C code on the deployment machine as part of preinstall script.

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