How to make node.js portable on windows git/msys

Table of Content

Assume you have portable git/msys, you can find details in portabledevops in github.

There are two parts for node.js

node, Node.js interpreter
npm, node package manager

I would like to carry node.js in usb driver, found the npm default configuration is too close to windows environment:

prefix = "C:\\Users\\username\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm"
cache = "C:\\Users\\username\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm-cache
tmp = "C:\\Users\\username\\AppData\\Local\\Temp"

the good thing is you can change them to portable node.js folder in npm global setting, for example:

npm config set prefix=nodejs/.node_modules_global
npm config set cache=nodejs/npm-cache
npm config set tmp=/home/username/AppData/Local/Temp

sample of portable node.js setting in portabledevops.sh

You can check out portabledevops.sh in portabledevops , and place it in your git/msys /etc/profile.d/ folder, it will be sourced each time when launch bash by "bash –login -i" .

# portable nodejs
export PATH=$PORTABLEPATH/nodejs:$PATH

if [ ! -d $PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/.node_modules_global ]; then
	echo "First time to create npm modules global: $PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/.node_modules_global"
	mkdir -p $PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/.node_modules_global
fi
$PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/npm config set prefix=$PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/.node_modules_global

if [ ! -d $PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/npm-cache ]; then
	echo "First time to create npm-cache: $PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/npm-cache"
	mkdir -p $PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/npm-cache
fi
$PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/npm config set cache=$PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/npm-cache

if [ ! -d $PORTABLEPATH/home/$USERNAME/AppData/Local/Temp ]; then
	echo "First time to create tmp: $PORTABLEPATH/home/$USERNAME/AppData/Local/Temp"
	mkdir -p $PORTABLEPATH/home/$USERNAME/AppData/Local/Temp
fi
$PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/npm config set tmp=$PORTABLEPATH/home/$USERNAME/AppData/Local/Temp

export PATH=$PORTABLEPATH/nodejs/.node_modules_global:$PATH

verify portable node.js

$ which -a node
/L/portabledevops/nodejs/node

$ node -v
v6.3.1

$ which -a npm
/L/portabledevops/nodejs/npm

$ npm -v
3.10.3

$ npm config ls
user-agent = "npm/3.10.3 node/v6.3.1 win32 x64"

cache = "L:\\portabledevops\\nodejs\\npm-cache"
prefix = "L:\\portabledevops\\nodejs\\.node_modules_global"
tmp = "L:\\portabledevops\\home\\username\\AppData\\Local\\Temp"

$ npm list -g --depth=0
L:\portabledevops\nodejs\.node_modules_global
`-- gitbook-cli@2.3.0

Enjoy portable node.js !