NodeJS not installed successfully in AWS EC2 inside User-data

Question

I've tried to install NodeJS with nvm in AWS EC2 linux as follow inside user-data:

#!/bin/bash

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.1/install.sh | bash
source ~/.bashrc
nvm install 7

After instance is successfully created and I've entered and check inside my ec2 instance, there is no nodejs and nvm installed when I typed like node --version or nvm --version.

[ec2-user@ip-0-0-0-0 ~]$ node --version
-bash: node: command not found
[ec2-user@ip-0-0-0-0 ~]$ nvm --version
-bash: nvm: command not found

and when I've checked in instance's log, found following error message.

[   16.310115] cloud-init[3300]: => Downloading nvm as script to '/.nvm'
[   17.053885] cloud-init[3300]: => Profile not found. Tried  (as defined in $PROFILE), ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.zshrc, and ~/.profile.
[   17.076402] cloud-init[3300]: => Create one of them and run this script again
[   17.087459] cloud-init[3300]: => Create it (touch ) and run this script again
[   17.092307] cloud-init[3300]: OR
[   17.100669] cloud-init[3300]: => Append the following lines to the correct file yourself:
[   17.117606] cloud-init[3300]: export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[   17.124904] cloud-init[3300]: [ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm
[   17.161419] cloud-init[3300]: => Close and reopen your terminal to start using nvm or run the following to use it now:
[   17.177964] cloud-init[3300]: export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[   17.185400] cloud-init[3300]: [ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm

Answer 1

As explained by the logs, the install.sh script is trying to locate a profile, which it could not found. (remember that the script provided in user-data is run as root, so $HOME is /root.

The solution is to either ensure the profile file will exist before installation, either to manually change the path after the installation, as suggested in the log message.

Solution 1 (untested)

#!/bin/bash

touch ~/.bashrc # this ensure the bashrc file is created
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.1/install.sh | bash
source ~/.bashrc
nvm install 7

Solution 2 (tested)

#!/bin/bash

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.1/install.sh | bash
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
nvm install 7

(when run from user-data, $HOME is /) I tested the above in an interactive session on Amazon Linux.

$ ssh [email protected]
Warning: Permanently added 'ec2-18-202-174-164.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com,18.202.174.164' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.

       __|  __|_  )
       _|  (     /   Amazon Linux 2 AMI
      ___|\___|___|

https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-2/
3 package(s) needed for security, out of 3 available
Run "sudo yum update" to apply all updates.
[ec2-user@ip-172-31-30-44 ~]$ sudo bash
[root@ip-172-31-30-44 ec2-user]# curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.1/install.sh | bash
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 10250  100 10250    0     0  10250      0  0:00:01 --:--:--  0:00:01 54521
=> Downloading nvm as script to '/root/.nvm'


=> Appending source string to /root/.bashrc
=> Close and reopen your terminal to start using nvm or run the following to use it now:

export NVM_DIR="/root/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm
[root@ip-172-31-30-44 ec2-user]#
[root@ip-172-31-30-44 ec2-user]# export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[root@ip-172-31-30-44 ec2-user]# [ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
[root@ip-172-31-30-44 ec2-user]# nvm install 7
######################################################################## 100.0%
Computing checksum with sha256sum
Checksums matched!
Now using node v7.10.1 (npm v4.2.0)
Creating default alias: default -> 7 (-> v7.10.1)
[root@ip-172-31-30-44 ec2-user]# node --version
v7.10.1

Note that the above will install nvm, node and npm for the root user. It will not add the correct ENV VAR in ec2-user's environment. To do so, login as ec2-user then either type

export NVM_DIR="/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"

or add this to ec2-user's .bashrc

The proof it works (login as ec2-user :

[ec2-user@ip-172-31-20-26 ~]$ export NVM_DIR="/.nvm"
[ec2-user@ip-172-31-20-26 ~]$ [ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
[ec2-user@ip-172-31-20-26 ~]$ node --version && npm --version
v7.10.1
4.2.0

You can automate that in your user-data script :

cat <<EOF >> /home/ec2-user/.bashrc
export NVM_DIR="/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
EOF