Debian : Setting path for Node with root accessible globally

Question

I have downloaded NodeJS setup and have it inside at /home/deploy/nodejs. I am trying to set its path, but it's not working out. I am logged in as root, and I would like to access nodejs and npm accessible as root as well. For that I tried adding in /root/.bashrc the following content :

PATH=/usr/bin/node:/home/deploy/nodejs/bin/
PATH=/usr/bin/npm:/home/deploy/nodejs/bin/

After that I tried node and npm, but none of them worked. What am I doing wrong?

The files in /home/deploy/nodejs/bin are node, node_modules and npm. I tried the .deb installer, but that is not installing npm, only nodejs, so I have to do all this... :-(

Update

npm
/home/deploy/nodejs/bin/npm: 1: /home/deploy/nodejs/bin/npm: dirname: not found
/home/deploy/nodejs/bin/npm: 2: exec: /node: not found

Solution

1) You're overwriting the path which breaks a lot of your system. The correct line would be:

PATH="$PATH:/home/deploy/nodejs/bin"

With that, you're appending something to PATH, instead of overriding it. Also, the PATH consists of directories (and not files), and /usr/bin should be already in it, rendering the first part useless.

2) "Did you try turning it off and on again?" - the .bashrc is only loaded on login, or when using source ~/.bashrc. If you want to change the path system-wide, you should do so in /etc/profile.

3) Also, make sure that there is a /home/deploy/nodejs/bin/node file, and that it's executable (should definitely be the case if you installed it correctly, but you can run chmod a+x /home/deploy/nodejs/bin/node /home/deploy/nodejs/bin/npm to be extra-sure)

Comments

[We are Borg]

Okay..When I gave source ~/.bashrc, then other commands like ls, nano, etc have stopped working in that terminal, but when I opened a new ssh connection, then it worked. But npm command is still not working. I am adding error log for npm in main post.

[momar]

Oh, I just see that you're actually overwriting the path and therefore all information about where ls, nano and so on are located! I updated my answer :D

[We are Borg]

Your command in 1st worked. Thank you very much. :-) Can you also tell me how I can add it in /etc/profile, just for information. Thank you. :-)

[momar]

The /etc/profile is pretty much the same as the ~/.bashrc, just for all users. This means, you can just add the same line at the very bottom of this file.