Install node.js from source on alpine

Question

I'm trying to install node from source on alpine docker.

wget https://nodejs.org/dist/v14.4.0/node-v14.4.0-linux-x64.tar.xz

tar -xvf node-v14.4.0-linux-x64.tar.xz And once I try to run it:

~/node-v14.4.0-linux-x64/bin # ./node 
sh: ./node: not found

Although the file is here, I have the permission and it is executable

~/node-v14.4.0-linux-x64/bin # ls -la
total 70376
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root     4096 Oct  7 11:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 1001 1001     4096 Oct  7 11:53 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 72052312 Jun  2 14:33 node
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       38 Oct  7 11:53 npm -> ../lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       38 Oct  7 11:53 npx -> ../lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npx-cli.js

When I do same action on ubuntu it works.

Answer 1

This happens because alpine uses musl instead of glibc, and the binaries distributed from node's website are built against glibc.

Here are a few solutions for your problem, in order of preference (and why):

1. Use node's official image instead of trying to install it from a alpine base image: that's because there are different dependencies and things to setup before having a working node image (certificates, tls libraries, etc). This is the most recommended.

2. Installing node via apk: node is available at alpine's official package manager apk, and you can install it by simply running apk add nodejs. The only problem here is that the version that's available in the repository is the LTS (12.18.4 as of 2020-10-07).

3. Installing/building a compability layer for glibc in alpine: this is not recommended at all, since alpine is built over musl and running glibc is not a good practice and can lead to things breaking. Even installing the official libc6-compat may lead to problems:

Running node using libc6-compat:

$ ./node
Error relocating ./node: gnu_get_libc_version: symbol not found
Error relocating ./node: __register_atfork: symbol not found
Error relocating ./node: __strdup: symbol not found
Error relocating ./node: setcontext: symbol not found
Error relocating ./node: makecontext: symbol not found
Error relocating ./node: backtrace: symbol not found
Error relocating ./node: getcontext: symbol not found

Running node using this answer's suggestion for glibc:

$ ./node
./node: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Stick to node's official image (solution 1) and things should work out fine :)