verdaccio

What is verdaccio?

Verdaccio is a lightweight private npm proxy registry that allows you to host your own npm registry and cache npm packages. It is useful for speeding up npm installs, working offline, and hosting private packages.

What are verdaccio's main functionalities?

Private Registry

This configuration sets up Verdaccio as a private npm registry with authentication and proxying to the official npm registry.

const config = {
  storage: './storage',
  auth: {
    htpasswd: {
      file: './htpasswd'
    }
  },
  uplinks: {
    npmjs: {
      url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org/'
    }
  },
  packages: {
    '@*/*': {
      access: '$all',
      publish: '$authenticated',
      proxy: 'npmjs'
    },
    '**': {
      access: '$all',
      publish: '$authenticated',
      proxy: 'npmjs'
    }
  }
};

module.exports = config;

Caching

This configuration allows Verdaccio to cache packages from the official npm registry, speeding up subsequent installs.

const config = {
  storage: './storage',
  uplinks: {
    npmjs: {
      url: 'https://registry.npmjs.org/'
    }
  },
  packages: {
    '**': {
      access: '$all',
      proxy: 'npmjs'
    }
  }
};

module.exports = config;

Offline Mode

This configuration sets up Verdaccio to work in offline mode, using only the locally cached packages.

const config = {
  storage: './storage',
  uplinks: {},
  packages: {
    '**': {
      access: '$all'
    }
  }
};

module.exports = config;

Other packages similar to verdaccio

sinopia

Sinopia is an older private npm registry server that allows you to host your own npm registry. It is similar to Verdaccio but is no longer actively maintained.

npm-registry-couchapp

npm-registry-couchapp is a CouchDB-based npm registry implementation. It is more complex to set up compared to Verdaccio but offers more flexibility and scalability.

cnpm

cnpm is a private npm registry and web for Enterprise, base on the official npm registry. It is designed for use within a company and offers features like syncing with the official npm registry.

README

verdaccio is a fork of sinopia. It aims to keep backwards compatibility with sinopia, while keeping up with npm changes.

verdaccio - a private/caching npm repository server

It allows you to have a local npm registry with zero configuration. You don't have to install and replicate an entire CouchDB database. Verdaccio keeps its own small database and, if a package doesn't exist there, it asks npmjs.org for it keeping only those packages you use.

Use cases

1. Use private packages.

   If you want to use all benefits of npm package system in your company without sending all code to the public, and use your private packages just as easy as public ones.

   See using private packages section for details.

2. Cache npmjs.org registry.

   If you have more than one server you want to install packages on, you might want to use this to decrease latency (presumably "slow" npmjs.org will be connected to only once per package/version) and provide limited failover (if npmjs.org is down, we might still find something useful in the cache).

   See using public packages section for details.

3. Override public packages.

   If you want to use a modified version of some 3rd-party package (for example, you found a bug, but maintainer didn't accept pull request yet), you can publish your version locally under the same name.

   See override public packages section for details.

Installation

# installation and starting (application will create default
# config in config.yaml you can edit later)
$ npm install -g verdaccio
$ verdaccio

# npm configuration
$ npm set registry http://localhost:4873/

# if you use HTTPS, add an appropriate CA information
# ("null" means get CA list from OS)
$ npm set ca null

Now you can navigate to http://localhost:4873/ where your local packages will be listed and can be searched.

Configuration

When you start a server, it auto-creates a config file.

For instructions on how to run Verdaccio as a service, with a nice URL or behind a proxy have a look at the server-side configure document.

Docker

To use the latest pre-built docker image:

docker pull verdaccio/verdaccio

By tags

Since version v2.x you can pull docker images by tag, as follows:

For a major version:

docker pull verdaccio/verdaccio:2

For a minor version:

docker pull verdaccio/verdaccio:2.1

For a specific (minor) version:

docker pull verdaccio/verdaccio:2.1.7

Build your own Docker image

docker build -t verdaccio .

There is also an npm script for building the docker image, so you can also do:

npm run build-docker

If you want to use the docker image on a rpi or a compatible device there is also a dockerfile available. To build the docker image for raspberry pi execute:

npm run build-docker:rpi

To run the docker container:

docker run -it --rm --name verdaccio -p 4873:4873 \
  -v /<path to verdaccio directory>/conf:/verdaccio/conf \
  -v /<path to verdaccio directory>/storage:/verdaccio/storage \
  -v /<path to verdaccio directory>/local_storage:/verdaccio/local_storage \
  verdaccio/verdaccio

Please note that for any of the above docker commands you need to have docker installed on your machine and the docker executable should be available on your $PATH.

Docker Examples

This repository host multiple configurations to compose Docker images with verdaccio, for instance, as reverse proxy.

https://github.com/verdaccio/docker-examples

Ansible

A Verdaccio playbook is available at galaxy source: https://github.com/030/ansible-verdaccio

Chef

The Verdaccio Chef cookbook is available via the chef supermarket. source: https://github.com/kgrubb/verdaccio-cookbook

Puppet

The original Sinopia puppet module is available at puppet forge source: https://github.com/saheba/puppet-sinopia

Adding a new user

npm adduser --registry http://localhost:4873/

This will prompt you for user credentials which will be saved on the verdaccio server.

Using private packages

You can add users and manage which users can access which packages.

It is recommended that you define a prefix for your private packages, for example "local", so all your private things will look like this: local-foo. This way you can clearly separate public packages from private ones.

Using public packages from npmjs.org

If some package doesn't exist in the storage, server will try to fetch it from npmjs.org. If npmjs.org is down, it serves packages from cache pretending that no other packages exist. Verdaccio will download only what's needed (= requested by clients), and this information will be cached, so if client will ask the same thing second time, it can be served without asking npmjs.org for it.

Example: if you successfully request express@3.0.1 from this server once, you'll able to do that again (with all it's dependencies) anytime even if npmjs.org is down. But say express@3.0.0 will not be downloaded until it's actually needed by somebody. And if npmjs.org is offline, this server would say that only express@3.0.1 (= only what's in the cache) is published, but nothing else.

Override public packages

If you want to use a modified version of some public package foo, you can just publish it to your local server, so when your type npm install foo, it'll consider installing your version.

There's two options here:

1. You want to create a separate fork and stop synchronizing with public version.

   If you want to do that, you should modify your configuration file so verdaccio won't make requests regarding this package to npmjs anymore. Add a separate entry for this package to config.yaml and remove npmjs from proxy list and restart the server.

   When you publish your package locally, you should probably start with version string higher than existing one, so it won't conflict with existing package in the cache.

2. You want to temporarily use your version, but return to public one as soon as it's updated.

   In order to avoid version conflicts, you should use a custom pre-release suffix of the next patch version. For example, if a public package has version 0.1.2, you can upload 0.1.3-my-temp-fix. This way your package will be used until its original maintainer updates his public package to 0.1.3.

Compatibility

Verdaccio aims to support all features of a standard npm client that make sense to support in private repository. Unfortunately, it isn't always possible.

Basic features:

• Installing packages (npm install, npm upgrade, etc.) - supported
• Publishing packages (npm publish) - supported

Advanced package control:

• Unpublishing packages (npm unpublish) - supported
• Tagging (npm tag) - supported
• Deprecation (npm deprecate) - not supported

User management:

• Registering new users (npm adduser {newuser}) - supported
• Transferring ownership (npm owner add {user} {pkg}) - not supported, verdaccio uses its own acl management system

Misc stuff:

• Searching (npm search) - supported (cli / browser)
• Starring (npm star, npm unstar) - not supported, doesn't make sense in private registry
• Ping (npm ping) - supported

Storage

No CouchDB here. This application is supposed to work with zero configuration, so filesystem is used as a storage.

If you want to use a database instead, ask for it, we'll come up with some kind of a plugin system.

About the storage there is a running discussion here.

Similar existing things

• npm + git (I mean, using git+ssh:// dependencies) - most people seem to use this, but it's a terrible idea... npm update doesn't work, can't use git subdirectories this way, etc.
• reggie - this looks very interesting indeed... I might borrow some code there.
• shadow-npm, public service - it uses the same code as npmjs.org + service is dead
• gemfury and others - those are closed-source cloud services, and I'm not in a mood to trust my private code to somebody (security through obscurity yeah!)
• npm-registry-proxy, npm-delegate, npm-proxy - those are just proxies...
• nexus-repository-oss - Repository manager that handles more then just NPM dependencies
• Is there something else?
• codebox-npm - Serverless private npm registry using