How to Install Any Version of Node and NPM on OSX

Summary

Have the need to downgrade your Node and NPM installations?

If so, here's how I downgraded node from v0.10.33 to v0.10.26 and npm from 2.1.9 to 1.3.6.

Run these commands

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node_modules
echo prefix=~/.node >> ~/.npmrc
brew uninstall node
cd /usr/local
brew versions node|grep 0.10.26   # << this shows the git commit id (bae051d)
git checkout 0901e77 Library/Formula/node.rb
brew unlink node
brew install node
curl -L https://www.npmjs.org/install.sh|pbcopy
# This is when I created the install-npm-1.3.6.sh file
chmod +x install-npm-1.3.6.sh
install-npm-1.3.6.sh
ln -s `which npm` $HOME/.node/bin/npm

Created install-npm-1.3.6.sh File

Replace "latest" text with "1.3.6"

#!/bin/sh

# A word about this shell script:
#
# It must work everywhere, including on systems that lack
# a /bin/bash, map 'sh' to ksh, ksh97, bash, ash, or zsh,
# and potentially have either a posix shell or bourne
# shell living at /bin/sh.
#
# See this helpful document on writing portable shell scripts:
# http://www.gnu.org/s/hello/manual/autoconf/Portable-Shell.html
#
# The only shell it won't ever work on is cmd.exe.

if [ "x$0" = "xsh" ]; then
  # run as curl | sh
  # on some systems, you can just do cat>npm-install.sh
  # which is a bit cuter.  But on others, &1 is already closed,
  # so catting to another script file won't do anything.
  curl -s https://www.npmjs.org/install.sh > npm-install-$$.sh
  sh npm-install-$$.sh
  ret=$?
  rm npm-install-$$.sh
  exit $ret
fi

# See what "npm_config_*" things there are in the env,
# and make them permanent.
# If this fails, it's not such a big deal.
configures="`env | grep 'npm_config_' | sed -e 's|^npm_config_||g'`"

npm_config_loglevel="error"
if [ "x$npm_debug" = "x" ]; then
  (exit 0)
else
  echo "Running in debug mode."
  echo "Note that this requires bash or zsh."
  set -o xtrace
  set -o pipefail
  npm_config_loglevel="verbose"
fi
export npm_config_loglevel

# make sure that node exists
node=`which node 2>&1`
ret=$?
if [ $ret -eq 0 ] && [ -x "$node" ]; then
  (exit 0)
else
  echo "npm cannot be installed without node.js." >&2
  echo "Install node first, and then try again." >&2
  echo "" >&2
  echo "Maybe node is installed, but not in the PATH?" >&2
  echo "Note that running as sudo can change envs." >&2
  echo ""
  echo "PATH=$PATH" >&2
  exit $ret
fi

# set the temp dir
TMP="${TMPDIR}"
if [ "x$TMP" = "x" ]; then
  TMP="/tmp"
fi
TMP="${TMP}/npm.$$"
rm -rf "$TMP" || true
mkdir "$TMP"
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "failed to mkdir $TMP" >&2
  exit 1
fi

BACK="$PWD"

ret=0
tar="${TAR}"
if [ -z "$tar" ]; then
  tar="${npm_config_tar}"
fi
if [ -z "$tar" ]; then
  tar=`which tar 2>&1`
  ret=$?
fi

if [ $ret -eq 0 ] && [ -x "$tar" ]; then
  echo "tar=$tar"
  echo "version:"
  $tar --version
  ret=$?
fi

if [ $ret -eq 0 ]; then
  (exit 0)
else
  echo "No suitable tar program found."
  exit 1
fi



# Try to find a suitable make
# If the MAKE environment var is set, use that.
# otherwise, try to find gmake, and then make.
# If no make is found, then just execute the necessary commands.

# XXX For some reason, make is building all the docs every time.  This
# is an annoying source of bugs. Figure out why this happens.
MAKE=NOMAKE

if [ "x$MAKE" = "x" ]; then
  make=`which gmake 2>&1`
  if [ $? -eq 0 ] && [ -x "$make" ]; then
    (exit 0)
  else
    make=`which make 2>&1`
    if [ $? -eq 0 ] && [ -x "$make" ]; then
      (exit 0)
    else
      make=NOMAKE
    fi
  fi
else
  make="$MAKE"
fi

if [ -x "$make" ]; then
  (exit 0)
else
  # echo "Installing without make. This may fail." >&2
  make=NOMAKE
fi

# If there's no bash, then don't even try to clean
if [ -x "/bin/bash" ]; then
  (exit 0)
else
  clean="no"
fi

node_version=`"$node" --version 2>&1`
ret=$?
if [ $ret -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "You need node to run this program." >&2
  echo "node --version reports: $node_version" >&2
  echo "with exit code = $ret" >&2
  echo "Please install node before continuing." >&2
  exit $ret
fi

t="${npm_install}"
if [ -z "$t" ]; then
  # switch based on node version.
  # note that we can only use strict sh-compatible patterns here.
  case $node_version in
    0.[01234567].* | v0.[01234567].*)
      echo "You are using an outdated and unsupported version of" >&2
      echo "node ($node_version).  Please update node and try again." >&2
      exit 99
      ;;
    *)
      echo "install npm@1.3.6"
      t="1.3.6"
      ;;
  esac
fi

# need to echo "" after, because Posix sed doesn't treat EOF
# as an implied end of line.
url=`(curl -SsL https://registry.npmjs.org/npm/$t; echo "") \
     | sed -e 's/^.*tarball":"//' \
     | sed -e 's/".*$//'`

ret=$?
if [ "x$url" = "x" ]; then
  ret=125
  # try without the -e arg to sed.
  url=`(curl -SsL https://registry.npmjs.org/npm/$t; echo "") \
       | sed 's/^.*tarball":"//' \
       | sed 's/".*$//'`
  ret=$?
  if [ "x$url" = "x" ]; then
    ret=125
  fi
fi
if [ $ret -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "Failed to get tarball url for npm/$t" >&2
  exit $ret
fi


echo "fetching: $url" >&2

cd "$TMP" \
  && curl -SsL "$url" \
     | $tar -xzf - \
  && cd "$TMP"/* \
  && (ver=`"$node" bin/read-package-json.js package.json version`
      isnpm10=0
      if [ $ret -eq 0 ]; then
        if [ -d node_modules ]; then
          if "$node" node_modules/semver/bin/semver -v "$ver" -r "1"
          then
            isnpm10=1
          fi
        else
          if "$node" bin/semver -v "$ver" -r ">=1.0"; then
            isnpm10=1
          fi
        fi
      fi

      ret=0
      if [ $isnpm10 -eq 1 ] && [ -f "scripts/clean-old.sh" ]; then
        if [ "x$skipclean" = "x" ]; then
          (exit 0)
        else
          clean=no
        fi
        if [ "x$clean" = "xno" ] \
            || [ "x$clean" = "xn" ]; then
          echo "Skipping 0.x cruft clean" >&2
          ret=0
        elif [ "x$clean" = "xy" ] || [ "x$clean" = "xyes" ]; then
          NODE="$node" /bin/bash "scripts/clean-old.sh" "-y"
          ret=$?
        else
          NODE="$node" /bin/bash "scripts/clean-old.sh" &2
        exit $ret
      fi) \
  && (if [ "x$configures" = "x" ]; then
        (exit 0)
      else
        echo "./configure $configures"
        echo "$configures" > npmrc
      fi) \
  && (if [ "$make" = "NOMAKE" ]; then
        (exit 0)
      elif "$make" uninstall install; then
        (exit 0)
      else
        make="NOMAKE"
      fi
      if [ "$make" = "NOMAKE" ]; then
        "$node" cli.js rm npm -gf
        "$node" cli.js install -gf
      fi) \
  && cd "$BACK" \
  && rm -rf "$TMP" \
  && echo "It worked"

ret=$?
if [ $ret -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "It failed" >&2
fi
exit $ret

Check Your Downgraded Versions

$ node -v
v0.10.26
\$ npm -v
1.3.6

Notes

To get the correct version of node to checkout you'll need to do something like this:

brew versions node | grep 0.10.26

... and to get brew versions to work you may need to run this:

brew tap homebrew/boneyard

I do not advocate downgrading node and npm.

This was for example purposes.

Reverting Back to Latest Versions

Not sure why any one would want to remove such a useful command, but for the time being you can use the brew versions command to get the git command used to download a specific node version (0.10.33 in our case).

$ brew versions node | grep 0.10.33
Warning: brew-versions is unsupported and will be removed soon.
You should use the homebrew-versions tap instead:
  https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-versions

0.10.33  git checkout 4b9395f /usr/local/Library/Formula/node.rb


$ brew cleanup
$ brew cleanup --cache
$ cd /usr/local/Library/
$ git checkout 4b9395f /usr/local/Library/Formula/node.rb
$ brew install node

Notes

No other combination of brew commands would upgrade node from 0.10.26 to 0.10.33.

So, none of these had any other effect, other than keeping node at version 0.10.26:

$ brew uninstall node
$ brew upgrade
$ brew cleanup 
$ brew cleanup --cache
$ brew upgrade node

Verify Versions

Verify that both node and npm are back to the latest versions:

~ $ node -v
v0.10.33
~ $ npm -v
2.1.9

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