offline-npm

npm >= v3.x bundled with node >= v5 has broken this project.
preinstall script is since then called after requests to npm registry are made.
This makes it impossible for offline-npm to start as a registry server.
See BROKEN.md for detailed logs.

Hassle-free npm pack including all dependencies for offline installation with npm install

Add offline-npm to your project to serve a npm compatible tgz file wich contains all dependencies for offline installation with npm install.

Additionally you can use offline-npm -n to install packages from your local npm cache directory (Could be useful e.g. on travelling).

Even installs using git: or file: (requires node>=0.11) are considered.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Tutorial
• Install packages from npm cache offline
• Troubleshooting
• License

Installation

npm install -g offline-npm

Usage

1. Open terminal and go to your project you want to prepare for offline use. This folder needs to contain a package.json file.

2. Prepare your project for offline use

    offline-npm --add
   

   This changes the package.json file and adds a offline folder which will contain all your dependencies.

3. Pack your project

    npm pack
   

   Now the local cache is changed and all your projects dependencies will be downloaded into offline/cache and packed into the npm tgz file.

   Note: Take care not to add a global *.tgz into your .npmignore file!

   Note: An existing npm-shrinkwrap.json file will get overwritten in this step to provide install without the --registry switch. A backup is stored in the ./offline folder.

4. Transfer the resulting <name>-<version>.tgz from the pack command onto a machine with no connectivity to the required registry. Execute this line from a terminal.

   Now install the package with:

    npm install [-g] <name>-<version>.tgz
   

Tutorial

Find here a step-by-step tutorial using a provided sample project.

Install packages from npm cache offline

If you want to use your local npm cache to install packages from use the option

offline-npm -n [-d]

-d shows you some server logs on the console.

Then install packages from the local npm cache with:

npm --registry http://localhost:4873 [-f] install <packagename>

Use the -f switch to force installing packages. This might be required if npm stops stating "shasum" errors.

Troubleshooting

1. Never add *.tgz into your .npmignore file. Otherwise all package.tgz files for the offline installation will be missing.

   If you want to exclude previously packed versions of the package you're working with use <name>-*.tgz instead.

2. The script needs access to npm. It is assumed that npm is installed alongside with node. If you experience problems with correcty resolving npm, add to your $HOME/.profile or $HOME/.bashrc

    export NODE_PATH=<path_to_node_modules>/node_modules:$NODE_PATH
   

   where <path_to_node_modules> is the path to the node_modules dir which contains npm.

3. If installation hangs try installing in verbose mode

    `npm install <name-version>.tgz --verbose`
   

   If you see that some .lock in your files block you from progress, consider deleting them with npm cache clean <pkg>[@<version>]

License

Copyright (c) 2014 commenthol

Software is released under MIT.