asdf-nodejs

Node.js plugin for asdf version manager

The plugin properly validates OpenPGP signatures to check the authenticity of the package. Requires gpg to be available during package installs

Requirements

MacOS

GNU Core Utils - brew install coreutils
GnuPG - brew install gpg

Linux (Debian)

dirmngr - apt-get install dirmngr
GnuPG - apt-get install gpg
curl - apt-get install curl

Install

Install the plugin:

asdf plugin-add nodejs https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-nodejs.git

Import the Node.js release team's OpenPGP keys to main keyring:

bash -c '${ASDF_DATA_DIR:=$HOME/.asdf}/plugins/nodejs/bin/import-release-team-keyring'

Use

Check asdf readme for instructions on how to install & manage versions of Node.js.

When installing Node.js using asdf install, you can pass custom configure options with the following env vars:

NODEJS_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS - use only your configure options
NODEJS_EXTRA_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS - append these configure options along with ones that this plugin already uses
NODEJS_CHECK_SIGNATURES - strict is default. Other values are no and yes. Checks downloads against OpenPGP signatures from the Node.js release team.
NODEJS_ORG_MIRROR - official mirror https://nodejs.org/dist/ is default. If you are in China, you can set it to https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/node/.

`.nvmrc` and `.node-version` files

asdf uses the .tool-versions for auto-switching between software versions. To ease migration, you can have it read an existing .nvmrc or .node-version file to find out what version of Node.js should be used. To do this, add the following to $HOME/.asdfrc:

legacy_version_file = yes

Default npm Packages

asdf-nodejs can automatically install a set of default set of npm package right after installing a Node.js version. To enable this feature, provide a $HOME/.default-npm-packages file that lists one package per line, for example:

lodash
request
express

Temporarily disable reshimming

To avoid a slowdown when installing large packages (see asdf-vm#46), you can ASDF_SKIP_RESHIM=1 npm i -g <package> and reshim after installing all packages using asdf reshim nodejs.

Using a dedicated OpenPGP keyring

The bash script mentioned in the installation instructions (import-release-team-keyring) imports the OpenPGP public keys in your main OpenPGP keyring. However, you can also use a dedicated keyring in order to mitigate this issue.

To use a dedicated keyring, prepare the dedicated keyring and set it as the default keyring in the current shell:

export GNUPGHOME="${ASDF_DIR:-$HOME/.asdf}/keyrings/nodejs" && mkdir -p "$GNUPGHOME" && chmod 0700 "$GNUPGHOME"

# Imports Node.js release team's OpenPGP keys to the keyring
bash ~/.asdf/plugins/nodejs/bin/import-release-team-keyring

Again, if you used brew to manage the asdf installation use the following bash commands:

export GNUPGHOME="bash /usr/local/opt/asdf/keyrings/nodejs" && mkdir -p "$GNUPGHOME" && chmod 0700 "$GNUPGHOME"

# Imports Node.js release team's OpenPGP keys to the keyring
bash /usr/local/opt/asdf/plugins/nodejs/bin/import-release-team-keyring

Related notes

Verifying Node.js Binaries.
Only versions >=0.10.0 are checked. Before that version, signatures for SHA2-256 hashes might not be provided (and can not be installed with the strict setting for that reason).

This behavior can be influenced by the NODEJS_CHECK_SIGNATURES env var which supports the following options:

strict - (default): Check signatures/checksums and don’t operate on package versions which did not provide signatures/checksums properly (< 0.10.0).
no - Do not check signatures/checksums
yes- Check signatures/checksums if they should be present (enforced for >= 0.10.0)

ddresselhaus/asdf-nodejs