Permission denied for Git Clone when I do npm install

Question

I have git dependencies in my package.json file. When I do sudo npm install in my react app folder, I get this error

    npm ERR! code 1
    npm ERR! Command failed: /usr/bin/git clone --depth=1 -q -b master 
    https://github.com/lrojas94/react-file-base64.git /home/admin1/.npm/_cacache/tmp/git-clone-462782fb
    npm ERR! /home/admin1/.npm/_cacache/tmp/git-clone-462782fb/.git: Permission denied
    npm ERR! 

    npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
    npm ERR!     /home/admin1/.npm/_logs/2017-07-18T08_58_10_906Z-debug.log
    admin1@ubuntu:~/hys_pms/ui$ nohup: appending output to ‘nohup.out’

This is my package.json

    {
      "name": "react-hys-app",
      "version": "0.1.0",
      "private": true,
      "dependencies": {
        "annogenerate": "^0.8.1",
        "bootstrap": "^3.3.7",
        "cors-prefetch-middleware": "^1.0.0",
        "es6-promise": "^4.1.0",
        "express": "^4.15.3",
        "fixed-data-table": "^0.6.4",
        "flexbox-react": "^4.4.0",
        "font-awesome": "^4.7.0",
        "images-upload-middleware": "^1.1.1",
        "isomorphic-fetch": "^2.2.1",
        "jquery": "^3.2.1",
        "react": "^15.3.1",
        "react-autosuggest": "^9.0.1",
        "react-avatar-cropper": "^0.1.3",
        "react-bootstrap": "^0.30.8",
        "react-bootstrap-autosuggest": "^0.5.0",
        "react-bootstrap-date-picker": "^5.0.1",
        "react-bootstrap-table": "^3.3.1",
        "react-checkbox-list": "0.0.2",
        "react-datepicker": "^0.51.0",
        "react-datetime": "^2.8.10",
        "react-dom": "^15.4.0",
        "react-dual-listbox": "^1.1.0",
        "react-edit": "^6.3.0",
        "react-file-base64": "git+https://github.com/lrojas94/react-file-base64.git",
        "react-flexbox-grid": "^1.1.3",
        "react-grid-layout": "^0.14.6",
        "react-images-uploader": "^1.0.1",
        "react-pagify": "^2.2.0",
        "react-panelgroup": "^1.0.2",
        "react-radio-button-group": "^1.2.5",
        "react-redux": "^5.0.4",
        "react-router": "^2.7.0",
        "react-s-alert": "^1.3.0",
        "react-select": "^1.0.0-rc.5",
        "react-visibility-toggles": "^1.1.1",
        "reactabular-resizable": "^8.9.0",
        "reactabular-table": "^8.9.0",
        "recompose": "^0.23.5",
        "redux": "^3.6.0",
        "redux-devtools-extension": "^2.13.0",
        "redux-thunk": "^2.2.0",
        "redux-undo": "^1.0.0-beta9-9-1",
        "reflexbox": "^3.0.0-0",
        "schema2object": "^0.4.0",
        "searchtabular": "^1.5.0",
        "segmentize": "^0.4.1",
        "sortabular": "^1.4.0",
        "table-resolver": "^3.1.0"
      },
      "devDependencies": {
        "css-loader": "^0.28.4",
        "react-scripts": "0.9.5",
        "style-loader": "^0.18.2"
      },
      "scripts": {
        "start": "react-scripts start",
        "build": "react-scripts build",
        "test": "react-scripts test --env=jsdom",
        "eject": "react-scripts eject"
      }
    }

This line in package.json makes the issue.

"react-file-base64": "git+https://github.com/lrojas94/react-file-base64.git"

I am struck with this issue. Kindly help.

Answer 1

I had this exact same error with installing chimp (not from a git repo) after I'd upgraded from NodeJS 6.10 to 8.10 (and more importantly, to NPM 5.6.0). The problem is that npm 5 handles permissions / directories very differently than npm 4.

The solution is to NEVER use sudo when running npm 5. You'll find cases of when you have to use it with npm 4, but you shouldn't need to use sudo with npm 5. If you're installing globally, this link might help you. It didn't help me.

Since I was in a docker container, I could just modify my docker file to not use sudo and then everything was fine. If you're not, I suggest you run the following as your user (not root):

cd ~
sudo rm -rf .npm
cd <wherever your package.json/node_modules is>
npm cache clean
rm -rf node_modules
npm install