Warning "root" does not have permission to access the dev dir

[tjwebb]

For people coming here through search engines, see #454 (comment)

gyp WARN EACCES user "root" does not have permission to access the dev dir "/home/travis/.node-gyp/0.10.28"

I'm filing this here because node-gyp is the only package that seems to throw this issue. My project depends on some modules which build with node-gyp, and I see this warning for every one of them during 'npm install'. Does anyone have insight on what this warning means?

[ferdi24]

[help] same with me....

ferdinan@ferdinan:~/Documents/aplikasi-saya$ sudo npm install -g yo
[sudo] password for ferdinan: 

> fullname-native@0.1.1 install /usr/lib/node_modules/yo/node_modules/fullname/node_modules/fullname-native
> node-gyp rebuild

gyp ERR! UNCAUGHT EXCEPTION 
gyp ERR! stack Error: EPERM, utime '/home/ferdinan/.node-gyp/0.10.29'
gyp ERR! System Linux 3.13.0-24-generic
gyp ERR! command "node" "/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd /usr/lib/node_modules/yo/node_modules/fullname/node_modules/fullname-native
gyp ERR! node -v v0.10.29
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v0.13.1
gyp ERR! This is a bug in `node-gyp`.
gyp ERR! Try to update node-gyp and file an Issue if it does not help:
gyp ERR!     <https://github.com/TooTallNate/node-gyp/issues>
npm WARN optional dep failed, continuing fullname-native@0.1.1

anybody can help me to solved...!!!

[mhintz]

Yep, I'm getting a very similar error. In my case, it happens after running:

npm install grunt-browserify

I get:

fsevents@0.2.0 install <directory_name>/node_modules/grunt-browserify/node_modules/watchify/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents
node-gyp rebuild

gyp WARN EACCES user "" does not have permission to access the dev dir "/<my root user directory, (~)>/.node-gyp/0.10.29"
gyp WARN EACCES attempting to reinstall using temporary dev dir "/var/folders/_c/0g7gkjgs3_955vxcyp7y5xc40000gn/T/.node-gyp"
CXX(target) Release/obj.target/fse/fsevents.o
SOLINK_MODULE(target) Release/fse.node
SOLINK_MODULE(target) Release/fse.node: Finished

After that, I get the usual npm module installed boilerplate.

I get the same message when I run the command with root privileges, except with 'user "root" does not have permission...'

This error began happening after I upgraded node from version 0.10.21 to version 0.10.29 using the install package at http://nodejs.org/. I can see that the folder it's expecting, ~/.node-gyp/0.10.29, doesn't exist. If it helps, I'm running Mac OS X 10.9.3.

I wish I knew more about the project and could suggest a fix, but I thought I'd post, just to bring it to your attention.

Cheers!

[mhintz]

Update: as expected, everything works fine and I have no warning if I just change the name of the folder at ~/.node-gyp/0.10.21 to 0.10.29, matching my version change. I suspect those of you on Linux having a similar problem could make a similar fix. Hope it's not gonna break anything under the hood...

[kulicuu]

If I remember correctly, set unsafe-perm to true when running as sudo is a fix it's obstructing.

[djensen47]

I'm also seeing this on SmartOS/illumos/Solaris

[tomascharad]

+1
gyp WARN EACCES user "root" does not have permission to access the dev dir "/Users/XXX/.node-gyp/0.10.32"

[tjwebb]

Doesn't look like the project maintainer cares much about this issue

[tomascharad]

I solved it by using chown on the .node-gyp folder and cleaning cache if I remember correctly.

[BaggersIO]

Same problem here. Using Ubuntu 14.04. chown on the node-gyp folder did not fix the issue :(

[BaggersIO]

Solved it be adding --unsafe-perm.

In my case with sails:

sudo npm install --unsafe-perm --verbose -g sails

Works well!

[herrdu]

why should I set 'unsafe-perm ' =true ,what's the meaning of "unsafe-perm"?

[herrdu]

I met the same problem
"2:~ herrdu$ sudo npm install -g hexo
Password:
Sorry, try again.
Password:

fsevents@0.2.0 install /usr/local/lib/node_modules/hexo/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents
node-gyp rebuild

gyp WARN EACCES user "root" does not have permission to access the dev dir "/Users/herrdu/.node-gyp/0.10.32"
gyp WARN EACCES attempting to reinstall using temporary dev dir "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/hexo/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents/.node-gyp"
"
Do you find the solution?And can you show it in detail ?

[herrdu]

And if I create the direction ".node-gyp herrdu$ mrdir 0.10.32" ,the error is

fsevents@0.2.0 install /usr/local/lib/node_modules/hexo/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents
node-gyp rebuild

gyp ERR! UNCAUGHT EXCEPTION
gyp ERR! stack Error: EPERM, chmod '/Users/herrdu/.node-gyp/0.10.32'
gyp ERR! System Darwin 13.4.0
gyp ERR! command "node" "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd /usr/local/lib/node_modules/hexo/node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents
gyp ERR! node -v v0.10.32
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v1.0.1
gyp ERR! This is a bug in node-gyp.
gyp ERR! Try to update node-gyp and file an Issue if it does not help:
gyp ERR! https://github.com/TooTallNate/node-gyp/issues
npm WARN optional dep failed, continuing fsevents@0.2.0'

Then I can't solve it!!!

[Jakobud]

How come this is still an outstanding issue? Why is gyp even used by NPM if it's this broken with no clear solution? I've seen people recommend rm -rf ~/tmp and using --unsafe-perm but those haven't made a difference for me on my CentOS server.