NPM install failure in Ember app kit

Question

I am getting an error when running npm install after installing nodejs and grunt cli for EmberAppKit. Any help?

$ npm install
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/estraverse
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/proto-list
[email protected] install /home/.../node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/phantomjs

node install.js

setuid(): Operation not permitted

Answer 1

I'm getting the same setuid(): Operation not permitted running npm install with npm 1.4.21 on Ubuntu 14.10. I'm installing a different program (OOjs UI not Ember app kit) that has a grunt plug-in that also requires phantomjs.

I think what's happening is if you don't have phantomjs in your path or have the wrong version, then the npm phantomjs installer tries to install the actual 35+ MB phantomjs binary as well as its 5MB node wrapper. Something tries to become root to do the install, and this setuid(0) call fails with that error. But:

• the npm install phantomjs doesn't report a red npm error despite dying with this failure
• when you re-run npm it thinks phantomjs installed OK; maybe it's only checking that the wrapper exists.

If you had some version of phantomjs in your path already then it may sort of work, despite the failed install. Make sure you have the phantomjs version that your program wants, if not install that version of phantomjs separately.