verdaccio/SERVER.md

This is mostly basic linux server configuration stuff but I felt it important to document and share the steps I took to get verdaccio running permanently on my server. You will need root (or sudo) permissions for the following.

Running as a separate user

First create the verdaccio user:

$ sudo adduser --disabled-login --gecos 'Verdaccio NPM mirror' verdaccio

You create a shell as the verdaccio user using the following command:

$ sudo su verdaccio
$ cd ~

The 'cd ~' command send you to the home directory of the verdaccio user. Make sure you run verdaccio at least once to generate the config file. Edit it according to your needs.

Listening on all addresses

If you want to listen to every external address set the listen directive in the config to:

# you can specify listen address (or simply a port)
listen: 0.0.0.0:4873

Keeping verdaccio running forever

We can use the node package called 'forever' to keep verdaccio running all the time. https://github.com/nodejitsu/forever

First install forever globally:

$ sudo npm install -g forever

Make sure you've started verdaccio at least once to generate the config file and write down the created admin user. You can then use the following command to start verdaccio:

$ forever start `which verdaccio`

You can check the documentation for more information on how to use forever.

Surviving server restarts

We can use crontab and forever together to restart verdaccio after a server reboot. When you're logged in as the verdaccio user do the following:

$ crontab -e

This might ask you to choose an editor. Pick your favorite and proceed. Add the following entry to the file:

@reboot /usr/bin/forever start /usr/lib/node_modules/verdaccio/bin/verdaccio

The locations may vary depending on your server setup. If you want to know where your files are you can use the 'which' command:

$ which forever
$ which verdaccio