Etherpad-lite: Cannot install etherpad-lite (Ubuntu Server)

[zeer15398376]

I use Ubuntu instance created from AWS EC2, and follow the instructions of installing etherpad, after executing the bin/run.sh --root, it will fail:

Ensure that all dependencies are up to date... If this is the first time you have run Etherpad please be patient.

[email protected] install /root/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd
node scripts/build-browser-scripts

internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:550
throw err;
^

Error: Cannot find module '/root/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd/scripts/build-browser-scripts'
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:548:15)
at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:475:25)
at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:695:10)
at startup (internal/bootstrap/node.js:201:19)
at bootstrapNodeJSCore (internal/bootstrap/node.js:516:3)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] install: node scripts/build-browser-scripts
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] install script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /root/.npm/_logs/2018-08-17T04_46_57_247Z-debug.log

[clayu]

also experiencing

[zeer15398376]

I find the installation is successful on Google, but it not works on AWS EC2...

[muxator]

Hi,
this seems something related to the specific OS, possibly fixed improving documentation.

Could you please provide more details?

• Ubuntu version (possibly a link to the image itself, or access to a failing image)
• output of node --version and npm --version
• exact procedure followed for installing Etherpad (to replicate the steps)

My little analysis from the outside, hoping it helps (I have no access to any AWS instances):

run.sh performs an npm install from inside the src directtory. Among other things, this should bring in the failing module [email protected].
Indeed, on my machine (Ubuntu desktop 18.04, node manually installed), after running run.sh the directory src/node_modules/wd exists. The scripts.install section of the package.json inside that directory calls node scripts/build-browser-scripts, that exists as src/node_modules/wd/scripts/build-browser-scripts.js and runs successfully here, instead failing inexplicably in your instance.

What happens if you do the following?

cd <BASEDIR>/src/node_modules/wd
ls - l scripts
npm install

[zeer15398376]

Thanks for reply, here is the information

• Ubuntu version:
  Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial
  (IMAGE: ami-ba602bc2)
• Node version: 9.11.2 Npm version: 6.4.0
• Procedure (operate as root):
  sudo su
cd ~
apt-get update
apt install gzip git curl python libssl-dev pkg-config build-essential
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_9.x | sudo -E bash -
apt-get install -y nodejs
git clone https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite.git
cd etherpad-lite
bin/run.sh --root

• When I type the following command:
  root@ip-172-31-31-136:~# cd <BASEDIR>/src/node_modules/wd
bash: BASEDIR: No such file or directory

[muxator]

Hi,

1. instead of sudo su always use sudo -i (it keeps the environment)
2. <BASEDIR> was a placeholder. In your case its value would be /root/etherpad-lite

Could you try again on a clean machine making use of points 1 & 2?

1. running as root is not a good practice, but that's another story :)

[zeer15398376]

thanks, I have tried again on a clean machine, but I still find there is no wd inside the node_modules folder.

[treysp]

I am getting a very similar (but not identical) error related to node_modules/wd on CentOS 6

Error in shell:

> [email protected] install /opt/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd
> node scripts/build-browser-scripts

/opt/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/mkdirp/index.js:90
                    throw err0;
                    ^

Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/opt/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd/build'
    at Object.mkdirSync (fs.js:729:3)
    at sync (/opt/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/mkdirp/index.js:71:13)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/opt/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd/scripts/build-browser-scripts.js:6:1)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:689:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:700:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:599:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:538:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:530:3)
    at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:742:12)
    at startup (internal/bootstrap/node.js:266:19)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] install: `node scripts/build-browser-scripts`
npm ERR! Exit status 1

Error-related content from npm log:

1400 silly install [email protected]
1401 info lifecycle [email protected]\~install: [email protected]
1402 verbose lifecycle [email protected]\~install: unsafe-perm in lifecycle false
1403 verbose lifecycle [email protected]\~install: PATH: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm$
1404 verbose lifecycle [email protected]\~install: CWD: /opt/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd
1405 silly lifecycle [email protected]\~install: Args: [ '-c', 'node scripts/build-browser-scripts'$
1406 silly lifecycle [email protected]\~install: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
1407 info lifecycle [email protected]\~install: Failed to exec install script
1408 timing action:install Completed in 121ms
1409 verbose unlock done using /root/.npm/_locks/staging-4d108950646ee67b.lock for /opt/et$
1410 timing stage:rollbackFailedOptional Completed in 203ms
1411 timing stage:runTopLevelLifecycles Completed in 7760ms
1412 verbose stack Error: [email protected] install: \`node scripts/build-browser-scripts\`
1412 verbose stack Exit status 1
1412 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules$
1412 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:182:13)
1412 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules$
1412 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:182:13)
1412 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:961:16)
1412 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:2$
1413 verbose pkgid [email protected]
1414 verbose cwd /opt/etherpad-lite/src
1415 verbose Linux 2.6.32-696.18.7.el6.x86_64
1416 verbose argv "/usr/bin/node" "/usr/bin/npm" "install" "--no-save" "--loglevel" "warn"
1417 verbose node v10.9.0
1418 verbose npm  v6.2.0
1419 error code ELIFECYCLE

[clayu]

For a quick fix, I removed all the "devDependencies" from the package.json file.

"devDependencies": {
"mocha": "5.2.0",
"nyc": "^12.0.2",
"supertest": "3.0.0",
"wd": "1.10.3"
},

[muxator]

I _think_ that @treysp could be a directory permission problem (EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/opt/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/wd/build': maybe the same installation was tried twice on the same directory with users of different privileges? Or something similar...).

@clayu workaround bypasses the problem, but I think is a good idea anyways, because it exposes a weakness in the current code base: I am not sure it is wise to ask Etherpad users to install the devDependencies even when they just want to run the program.

For this, a better startup strategy (that gets rid of the current bash scripts) is worth some investigation.

Closing for now, thanks.