sh: 1: node: Permission denied NPM error [Solved]

# Table of Contents

1. sh: 1: node: Permission denied NPM error
2. Delete your node_modules folder and reinstall your dependencies
3. Make sure your package.json scripts are written correctly
4. Make sure the file/folder is executable
5. Setting your NPM user to root in Docker

# sh: 1: node: Permission denied NPM error [Solved]

The NPM error "sh: 1: node: Permission denied" occurs when you try to use the root user account to install a package or have broken NPM packages.

To solve the error, configure NPM to use the default user instead of the root user.

Here is the complete error message.

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sh: 1: node: Permission denied
npm ERR! file sh
npm ERR! package@version postinstall: `node lib/install.js`
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the package@version postinstall script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

If you got the error when installing a package, set the --user flag to 0 and the --unsafe-perm flag to true when issuing the NPM command.

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npm install <YOUR_PACKAGE> --user 0 --unsafe-perm true

The --user flag tells NPM to use the default user instead of the root user.

If the unsafe-perm option is set to false, then installing packages as a non-root user fails with the error.

If the error persists, try to create a .npmrc file in the root directory of your project (where your package.json file is) and add the following line to the file.

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unsafe-perm=true

# Delete your node_modules folder and reinstall your dependencies

The "sh: 1: node: Permission denied" error is also caused due to having broken NPM packages.

If you are on Windows, open CMD in your project's root directory (where your package.json file is) and run the following commands.

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# for Windows
rd /s /q "node_modules"
del package-lock.json
del -f yarn.lock

# 👇️ clean npm cache
npm cache clean --force

# 👇️ install packages
npm install

# or using yarn
yarn install

If you are on macOS or Linux, run the following commands instead.

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# for Windows
rd /s /q "node_modules"
del package-lock.json
del -f yarn.lock

# 👇️ clean npm cache
npm cache clean --force

# 👇️ install packages
npm install

# or using yarn
yarn install

Try to rerun the NPM command that previously caused the issue after deleting and reinstalling your node modules.

Make sure to not install your packages using sudo. This makes your root user the owner of the node_modules directory and causes the error.

# Make sure your package.json scripts are written correctly

Another thing that causes the error is having an incorrectly written package.json script.

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{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "index.js"
  }
}

Trying to run the npm run start command causes the following error:

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npm run start

• "sh: 1: index.js: not found"

The issue with the script above is that I forgot to specify the command that I want to run when the NPM script is executed, e.g. node index.js.

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{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js"
  }
}

Make sure you aren't trying to run an NPM script that is written incorrectly.

The index.js file is now passed to the node command instead of being run directly.

# Make sure the file/folder is executable

If the error persists, make sure that the file or folder is executable.

For example, if you have issues with your node_modules directory, run the following command.

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sudo chmod -R +x node_modules

If you run into issues when trying to execute a specific file, run the following command.

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sudo chmod +x <YOUR_FILE>

The chmod +x command makes a file or a directory executable.

If you still run into issues, you can try to enable everyone to read, write and execute the files in your project directory.

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sudo chmod 777 -R YOUR_PROJECT_DIRECTORY/

# Setting your NPM user to root in Docker

If you use Docker, you can also try to set your NPM user to root by adding the following line to your Dockerfile.

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ENV npm_config_user=root

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• The 'npm audit fix' command not working [Solved]
• How to add comments to your package.json file
• How to reset your NPM configuration to the default values
• 'X npm packages are looking for funding' on npm install
• How to generate a package-lock.json file [4 ways]
• npm install doesn't install devDependencies issue [Solved]
• npm should be run outside of the Node.js REPL, in your normal shell
• The module was compiled against a different Node.js version using NODE_MODULE_VERSION
• Error: getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND when making HTTP request [Fix]
• exec user process caused: exec format error [Solved]