AWS - Installing bower components via npm install

Question

I am trying to spin up a node.js server using the git aws.push method

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/latest/dg/create_deploy_nodejs.sdlc.html

Similar to this solution, I'm trying to run 'bower install', though my solution is a bit different:

https://developer.ibm.com/answers/questions/16594/how-to-install-packages-on-nodejs/

my implementation:

"scripts": { "postinstall": "bower install -F" },

this works fine locally - npm install also runs bower install with no problems. when i deploy to aws, npm runs fine - i know that my server starts up fine because i can see messages from it in the logs, but none of the bower components are in place when i try to bring up the client.

i'm using node v0.10.26, and i am sure that i don't have bower installed globally on my local machine. i've tried this both with and without including bower in the dependencies section of my package.json.

any ideas? and thanks in advance.

package.json

{
  "name": "smf",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "aws-sdk": "~2.0.0-rc.14",
    "base64-js": "0.0.6",
    "bookshelf": "~0.6.10",
    "bower": "*",
    "change-case": "~2.1.1",
    "crypto-js": "~3.1.2-3",
    "geojson": "~0.1.5",
    "handlebars": "~2.0.0-alpha.2",
    "js-base64": "~2.1.5",
    "lodash": "~2.4.1",
    "mathjs": "~0.21.0",
    "minify": "~0.5.1",
    "moment": "~2.6.0",
    "newrelic": "~1.5.3",
    "node-cryptojs-aes": "~0.4.0",
    "node-highcharts": "0.0.2",
    "node-uuid": "~1.4.1",
    "passport": "~0.2.0",
    "passport-http": "~0.2.2",
    "passport-local": "~1.0.0",
    "password-hash": "~1.2.2",
    "pg": "~3.0.3",
    "restify": "~2.7.0",
    "should": "~3.3.1",
    "socket.io": "~0.9.16",
    "sqlite3": "~2.2.3",
    "util": "~0.10.3",
    "when": "~3.1.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "grunt": "~0.4.2",
    "grunt-contrib-jshint": "^0.10.0",
    "grunt-mocha-test": "~0.9.0",
    "mocha-phantomjs": "~3.3.1"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "postinstall": "bower install -F"
  },
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=0.6"
  }
}

LOG FILES

The entire log is too long, though I will paste it in multiple comments if you need. Below is the only section that mentions bower at all.

If I try to access the site, I can get access logs indicating that bower components are missing.

There doesn't appear to be any execution of bower install happening.

---

/var/log/directory-hooks-executor.log

[email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/configstore/node_modules/js-yaml/node_modules/argparse/node_modules/underscore.string [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/configstore/node_modules/js-yaml/node_modules/esprima [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/configstore/node_modules/object-assign [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/configstore/node_modules/uuid [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/got [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/got/node_modules/object-assign [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf/node_modules/config-chain [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf/node_modules/config-chain/node_modules/proto-list [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf/node_modules/ini [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf/node_modules/inherits [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf/node_modules/mkdirp [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf/node_modules/once [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/latest-version/node_modules/package-json/node_modules/registry-url/node_modules/npmconf/node_modules/uid-number [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/semver-diff [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/string-length [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/string-length/node_modules/strip-ansi [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/update-notifier/node_modules/string-length/node_modules/strip-ansi/node_modules/ansi-regex [email protected] /tmp/deployment/application/node_modules/bower/node_modules/which

Answer 1

bower is probably not installed globally (if it is, please tell me how to do that on elastic beanstalk :D ). You should instead point to the bin of bower in the node_modules folder (which is how we used to do it). We have turned away from that solution (consider it at a scale of 500 instances spinning up..) and are checking bower_components into the repo.

"scripts": {
  "postinstall": "node_modules/bower/bin/bower install -F"
},

Answer 2

Adding a .config file to your .ebextensions dir to install bower components helps. Unfortunately, node and npm are not added to the path by default so you need to find the latest node instance and create a symlink. I'm really not a fan of installing the bower components as root but this'll work:

commands:
  01_get_sudo:
      command: echo Defaults:root \!requiretty >> /etc/sudoers
  02_node_path:
    command: "sudo ln -sf `ls -td /opt/elasticbeanstalk/node-install/node-* | head -1`/bin/node /usr/bin/node"
  03_npm_path:
    command: "sudo ln -sf `ls -td /opt/elasticbeanstalk/node-install/node-* | head -1`/bin/npm /usr/bin/npm"

container_commands:
  01_bower_install:
    command: "sudo ./node_modules/bower/bin/bower install --allow-root"