npm config set tarball no longer supported by npm as of npm v9.3.1

[matthias-heller]

npm config set tarball not working anymore

Is there any workaround? We were using the tarball option to prevent the download of the node headers from internet as our environment doesn't have an internet access. Simply passing it to node-gyp doesn't work because a sub dependency which we don't have in our hand need node-gyp

Executed command

• npm config set tarball "/node/node-headers.tar.gz" --verbose

npm details:

• node bin location = C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe
• node version = v18.14.1
• npm local prefix = C:\Users\User
• npm version = 9.3.1
• cwd = C:\Users\User
• HOME = C:\Users\User
• Run npm config ls -l to show all defaults.

Verbose output:

npm verb cli C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js
npm info using npm@9.3.1
npm info using node@v18.14.1
npm verb title npm config set tarball
npm verb argv "config" "set" "tarball" "" "--loglevel" "verbose"
npm verb logfile logs-max:10 dir:C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\npm-cache_logs\2023-02-18T09_38_37_771Z-
npm verb logfile C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\npm-cache_logs\2023-02-18T09_38_37_771Z-debug-0.log
npm info config set "tarball" ""
npm verb stack Error: tarball is not a valid npm option
npm verb stack at Config.set (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\lib\commands\config.js:158:15)
npm verb stack at Config.exec (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\lib\commands\config.js:120:22)
npm verb stack at Config.cmdExec (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\lib\base-command.js:130:17)
npm verb stack at Npm.exec (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\lib\npm.js:154:20)
npm verb stack at async module.exports (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\lib\cli.js:134:5)
npm verb cwd C:\Users\User
npm verb Windows_NT 10.0.19044
npm verb node v18.14.1
npm verb npm v9.3.1
npm ERR! tarball is not a valid npm option
npm verb exit 1
npm verb code 1
Usage: npm
(...)

[StefanStojanovic]

Hello, there is a very similar issue to this one #2798. In short, the workaround is to downgrade npm. For more details on what caused this behavior and when it started, please visit the see npm/cli#6126 (comment)

[doteric]

Is there any recommended approach to this? Looks like the nodedir option has also been removed as of npm v9.
Previously we were downloading the headers from https://nodejs.org/download/release/${NODE_VERSION}/node-${NODE_VERSION}-headers.tar.gz and changing the npm config setting.

CC @cclauss

[jhested]

Not sure what the use case is here, but hopefully this is of some help to others.

I managed to get around the issue when using yarn by doing

npm_config_tarball=node-headers.tar.gz yarn install

[sseuzss]

Try using export GYP_TARBALL=/node/node-headers.tar.gz for workaround it

[SteveMartinUK]

I had this issue and initially downgraded npm to get the old behaviour to work. The following worked with npm 9.6.7

npm install --tarball=/tmp/node-headers.tgz

[lukekarrys]

As others have posted, the preferred way to set npm configs is put npm_config_<NAME>=<VALUE> before your command. This has been updated in the docs.