Node.js virtual environment

nodeenv (node.js virtual environment) is a tool to create isolated node.js environments.

It creates an environment that has its own installation directories, that doesn't share libraries with other node.js virtual environments.

Install

You can install nodeenv with easy_install:

$ sudo easy_install nodeenv

or pip:

$ sudo pip install nodeenv

If you want to work with the latest version of the nodeenv you can install it from the github repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/ekalinin/nodeenv.git
$ ./nodeenv/nodeenv.py --help

Or you can just download raw nodeenv.py and use it:

$ wget https://raw.github.com/ekalinin/nodeenv/master/nodeenv.py
$ python nodeenv.py --version
0.4.0

Dependency

For nodeenv

make
curl
egrep
sort
tail
tar

For node.js

python
libssl-dev

Usage

Basic

Install new environment:

$ nodeenv env

Activate new environment:

$ . env/bin/activate

Chek versions of main packages:

(env) $ node -v
v0.4.6

(env) $ npm -v
0.3.18

Deactivate environment:

(env) $ deactivate_node

Advanced

Get available node.js versions:

$ nodeenv --list
0.0.1   0.0.2   0.0.3   0.0.4   0.0.5   0.0.6   0.1.0
0.1.2   0.1.3   0.1.4   0.1.5   0.1.6   0.1.7   0.1.8
0.1.10  0.1.11  0.1.12  0.1.13  0.1.14  0.1.15  0.1.16
0.1.18  0.1.19  0.1.20  0.1.21  0.1.22  0.1.23  0.1.24
0.1.26  0.1.27  0.1.28  0.1.29  0.1.30  0.1.31  0.1.32
0.1.90  0.1.91  0.1.92  0.1.93  0.1.94  0.1.95  0.1.96
0.1.98  0.1.99  0.1.100 0.1.101 0.1.102 0.1.103 0.1.104
0.2.1   0.2.2   0.2.3   0.2.4   0.2.5   0.2.6   0.3.0
0.3.2   0.3.3   0.3.4   0.3.5   0.3.6   0.3.7   0.3.8
0.4.1   0.4.2   0.4.3   0.4.4   0.4.5   0.4.6

Install node.js "0.4.3" without ssl support with 4 parallel commands for compilation and npm.js "0.3.17":

$ nodeenv --without-ssl --node=0.4.3 --npm=0.3.17 --jobs=4 env-4.3

Saving into the file versions of all installed packages:

$ . env-4.3/bin/activate
(env-4.3)$ npm install express
(env-4.3)$ npm install jade
(env-4.3)$ freeze ../prod-requirements.txt

Create environment copy from requirement file:

$ nodeenv --requirement=../prod-requirements.txt --jobs=4 env-copy

Requirements files are plain text files that contain a list of packages to be installed. These text files allow you to create repeatable installations. Requirements file example:

$ cat ../prod-requirements.txt
connect@1.3.0
express@2.2.2
jade@0.10.4
mime@1.2.1
npm@0.3.17
qs@0.0.7

If you're already have python virtualenv tool, and want to use nodeenv and virtualenv in conjunction, then you should create (or activate) python virtual environment:

$ mkvirtualenv my_env # in case of using virtualenv_wrapper

and add node virtual environment to this existing new_venv:

$ nodeenv -p

That's all. Now, all your node.js modules will be installed into your virtual environment:

$ workon my_env
$ npm install -g coffee-script
$ which coffee
/home/monty/virtualenvs/my_env/bin/coffee

Alternatives

There are several alternatives that create isolated environments:

nave - Virtual Environments for Node. Nave stores all environments in one directory ~/.nave. Thus it is not possible to create different environments for one version of node.js. Can not pass additional arguments into configure (for example --without-ssl)
nvm - Node Version Manager. It is necessarily to do nvm sync for caching available node.js version. Can not pass additional arguments into configure (for example --without-ssl)
virtualenv Virtual Python Environment builder. For python only.

alexcouper / nodeenv