Node.js is a JavaScript runtime for server-side programming. It allows developers to create scalable backend functionality using JavaScript, a language many are already familiar with from browser-based web development. Show In this guide, we will show you three different ways of getting Node.js installed on an Ubuntu 20.04 server:
For many users, using 1 with the default repo will be sufficient. If you need specific newer or legacy versions of Node, you should use the PPA repository. If you are actively developing Node applications and need to switch between 7 versions frequently, choose the 5 method. This article will walk you through installing Node.js on an Ubuntu server. If you wanted a 1-click way to deploy a Node application to a live server, take a look at DigitalOcean App Platform. To follow this guide, you will need an Ubuntu 20.04 server set up. Before you begin, you should have a non-root user account with 9 privileges set up on your system. You can learn how to do this by following the Ubuntu 20.04 initial server setup tutorial. Ubuntu 20.04 contains a version of Node.js in its default repositories that can be used to provide a consistent experience across multiple systems. At the time of writing, the version in the repositories is 10.19. This will not be the latest version, but it should be stable and sufficient for quick experimentation with the language. Warning: the version of Node.js included with Ubuntu 20.04, version 10.19, is now unsupported and unmaintained. You should not use this version in production, and should refer to one of the other sections in this tutorial to install a more recent version of Node. To get this version, you can use the 1 package manager. Refresh your local package index first: Then install Node.js: Check that the install was successful by querying 7 for its version number: If the package in the repositories suits your needs, this is all you need to do to get set up with Node.js. In most cases, you’ll also want to also install 2, the Node.js package manager. You can do this by installing the 2 package with 1: This allows you to install modules and packages to use with Node.js. At this point, you have successfully installed Node.js and 2 using 1 and the default Ubuntu software repositories. The next section will show how to use an alternate repository to install different versions of Node.js. To install a different version of Node.js, you can use a PPA (personal package archive) maintained by NodeSource. These PPAs have more versions of Node.js available than the official Ubuntu repositories. Node.js v16 and v18 are available as of the time of writing. First, install the PPA to get access to its packages. From your home directory, use 7 to retrieve the installation script for your preferred version, making sure to replace 8 with your preferred version string (if different): Refer to the NodeSource documentation for more information on the available versions. Inspect the contents of the downloaded script with 9 or your preferred text editor: When you are satisfied that the script is safe to run, exit your editor. Then run the script with 9: The PPA will be added to your configuration and your local package cache will be updated automatically. You can now install the Node.js package in the same way you did in the previous section: Verify that you’ve installed the new version by running 7 with the 2 version flag: 0 The NodeSource 2 package contains both the 7 binary and 2, so you don’t need to install 2 separately. At this point, you have successfully installed Node.js and 2 using 1 and the NodeSource PPA. The next section will show how to use the Node Version Manager to install and manage multiple versions of Node.js. Another way of installing Node.js that is particularly flexible is to use nvm, the Node Version Manager. This piece of software allows you to install and maintain many different independent versions of Node.js, and their associated Node packages, at the same time. To install NVM on your Ubuntu 20.04 machine, visit the project’s GitHub page. Copy the 7 command from the README file that displays on the main page. This will get you the most recent version of the installation script. Before piping the command through to 0, it is always a good idea to audit the script to make sure it isn’t doing anything you don’t agree with. You can do that by removing the 1 segment at the end of the 7 command: 1 Review the script and make sure you are comfortable with the changes it is making. When you are satisfied, run the command again with 1 appended at the end. The URL you use will change depending on the latest version of nvm, but as of right now, the script can be downloaded and executed with the following: 2 This will install the 5 script to your user account. To use it, you must first source your 5 file: 3 Now, you can ask NVM which versions of Node are available: 4 5 It’s a very long list. You can install a version of Node by writing in any of the release versions listed. For instance, to get version v14.10.0, you can run: 6 You can view the different versions you have installed by listing them: 7 8 This shows the currently active version on the first line ( 6), followed by some named aliases and the versions that those aliases point to. Note: if you also have a version of Node.js installed through 1, you may receive a 8 entry here. You can always activate the system-installed version of Node using 9. Additionally, there are aliases for the various long-term support (or LTS) releases of Node: 9 You can install a release based on these aliases as well. For instance, to install the latest long-term support version, 0, run the following: 0 1 You can switch between installed versions with 1: 2 3 4 The correct version of Node is installed on your machine as expected. A compatible version of 2 is also available. You can uninstall Node.js using 1 or 5, depending on how it was installed. To remove the version from the system repositories, use 5: 5 By default, 5 retains any local configuration files that were created since installation. If you don’t want to save the configuration files for later use, use 7: 6 To uninstall a version of Node.js that you installed using 5, first determine whether it is the current active version: 7 If the version you are targeting is not the current active version, you can run: 8 9 This command will uninstall the selected version of Node.js. If the version you would like to remove is the current active version, you first need to deactivate 5 to enable your changes: 0 Now you can uninstall the current version using the 0 command used previously. This removes all files associated with the targeted version of Node.js. There are quite a few ways to get up and running with Node.js on your Ubuntu 20.04 server. Your circumstances will dictate which of the above methods is best for your needs. While using the packaged version in Ubuntu’s repository is one method, using 5 or a NodeSource PPA offers additional flexibility. For more information on programming with Node.js, please refer to our tutorial series How To Code in Node.js. |
