npm installation fails on OS X High Sierra

[ghost]

$ npm --version
5.5.1

$ sudo npm install -g dtrace-provider

dtrace-provider@0.8.5 install /usr/local/lib/node_modules/dtrace-provider
node scripts/install.js

fs.js:784
return binding.rename(pathModule.toNamespacedPath(oldPath),
^

Error: EACCES: permission denied, rename '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/dtrace-provider/compile.py' -> '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/dtrace-provider/binding.gyp'
at Object.fs.renameSync (fs.js:784:18)
at Object. (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/dtrace-provider/scripts/install.js:14:4)
at Module._compile (module.js:660:30)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:671:10)
at Module.load (module.js:573:32)
at tryModuleLoad (module.js:513:12)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:505:3)
at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:701:10)
at startup (bootstrap_node.js:194:16)
at bootstrap_node.js:618:3
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! dtrace-provider@0.8.5 install: node scripts/install.js
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the dtrace-provider@0.8.5 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! ~/.npm/_logs/2017-12-18T03_49_49_381Z-debug.log

[melloc]

This looks like a problem with how npm drops permissions when doing a global install. I haven't been able to reproduce this, but I reworked how the install lifecycle script gets run to hopefully recover from this kind of failure better. If you've continued having the issue, could you please try again and see if it still fails? You may want to run it with V set in the environment. For example:

$ V=1 sudo npm install -g dtrace-provider