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linuxnpmyarnpkg

"npm -g yarn" gives "permission denied, symlink..." but the proper permissions do exists

I need to install yarn without sudo. I do this:

$ npm install -g yarn

and I get this:

npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! syscall symlink
npm ERR! path ../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js
npm ERR! dest /usr/bin/yarn
npm ERR! errno -13
npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js' -> '/usr/bin/yarn'
npm ERR!  [OperationalError: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js' -> '/usr/bin/yarn'] {
npm ERR!   cause: [Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js' -> '/usr/bin/yarn'] {
[.........]

But:

ls -al /usr/lib/node_modules/

drwxr-xr-x  5 user1 user1  4096 Sep 15 05:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 63 root  root  32768 Sep 14 15:18 ..
drwxr-xr-x  9 user1 user1  4096 Sep 14 14:48 node-gyp
drwxr-xr-x  9 user1 user1  4096 Sep 15 04:22 npm
drwxr-xr-x  7 user1 user1  4096 Sep 14 14:48 semver

And

$ ls -ald /usr/lib/node_modules/
drwxr-xr-x 5 user1 user1 4096 Sep 15 05:13 /usr/lib/node_modules/

Why and how to fix it?

Solution

  • Your config folder must be owned by root, which creates several permissions issue. Changing it to the current user will solve it

    $USER:$GROUP -> gives the current login user and the group. in the terminal you can try to echo $USER echo $GROUP to know its value. By this command, it will change to the value present in $USER. The same applies for the group too.

    sudo chown -R $USER:$GROUP ~/.npm
sudo chown -R $USER:$GROUP ~/.config

    now try all your commands

    replication of https://github.com/bower/bower/issues/2262