Upgrades to the latest version of Node, or manages more versions of Node on the same machine, supporting all platforms including RISC-V, as simple es rustup.

• Small. Written in bash, easily extensible.
• Fast. Downloads and unpacks pre-built binary builds.
• Portable. Writes only to the user home directory.
• Simple. Switches the version globally, no environment variable changes needed.
• Efficient. Just run nodeup up.

Platforms: aix-ppc64, darwin-x64, darwin-arm64, linux-x64, linux-x86, linux-x64-musl, linux-arm64, linux-armv6l, linux-armv7l, linux-loong64, linux-ppc64le, linux-riscv64, linux-s390x, windows-x86, windows-x64, windows-arm64.

Make sure that you have bash 4 or newer and curl available, execute the following command:

curl -fSs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/prantlf/nodeup/master/install.sh | bash 

Install the latest LTS version of Node, if it hasn't been installed yet:

nodeup install lts 

Before you continue, make sure that you have the following tools available: curl, grep, jq, ln, rm, rmdir, sed, tar (non-Windows), uname, unxz (non-Windows), unzip (Windows). It's likely that jq will be missing. You can install it like this on Debian: apt-get install -y jq.

Upgrade both the installer script and the Node language (to the latest LTS version), if they're not up-to-date, and delete the previously active latest LTS version from the disk too:

nodeup up lts 

If you specify latest instead of 'lts, the latest non-LTS version will apply. The latest LTS version is 24.

Make sure that you have bash 4 or newer and curl available, execute the following command:

curl -fSs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/prantlf/nodeup/master/install.sh | bash 

Both the nodeup and node should be executable in any directory via the PATH environment variable. The installer script will modify the RC-file of the shell, from which you launched it. The following RC-files are supported:

~/.bashrc ~/.zshrc ~/.config/fish/config.fish 

If you use other shell or more shells, update the other RC-files by putting both the installer directory and the Node binary directory to PATH, for example:

$HOME/.nodeup:$HOME/.node/bin:$PATH 

Start a new shell after the installer finishes. Or extend the PATH in the current shell as the instructions on the console will tell you.

For example, with the Node 20.16.0 activated:

/home/prantlf/.nodeup ├── 20.16.0 (linked to /home/prantlf/.node) ├── 22.6.0 (another version) └── nodeup (installer script) 

nodeup <task> [version] Tasks: current print the currently selected version of Node latest print the latest version of Node for download local print versions of Node ready to be selected remote print versions of Node available for download update update this tool to the latest version upgrade upgrade Node to the latest and remove the current version up perform both update and upgrade tasks install <version> add the specified or the latest version of Node uninstall <version> remove the specified version of Node use <version> use the specified or the latest version of Node help print usage instructions for this tool version print the version of this tool 

You can enter just MAJ or MAJ.MIN as <version>, instead of the full MAJ.MIN.PAT. When using the install or use tasks, the most recent full version that starts by the entered partial version will be picked. When using the uninstall task, the least recent full version that starts by the entered partial version will be picked.

If you enable bash debugging, every line of the script will be printed on the console. You'll be able to see values of local variables and follow the script execution:

bash -x nodeup ... 

You can debug the installer too:

curl -fSs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/prantlf/nodeup/master/install.sh | bash -x 

The following environment variables can be set before running install.sh or nodeup, if you know what you're doing:

The detection of the architecture ARM v6 and v7 may not work in your environment. For example, uname -m in Debian reports:

While, uname -m in Raspbian reports:

nodeup regognises armhf as ARM v6. If you use it on Debian and ARM v7, enforce the proper architecture by setting the environment variable ARCH explicitly:

ARCH=armv7l nodeup ... 

If you don't do it, the node executable will work well nevertheless, because binaries for ARM v6 can be run on ARM v7. Just the performance of floating point computations may be lower.

If uname reports other value than armhf, the platform recognition will work well. Pay attention to the console output, in particular to this line:

detected platform linux-armv6l 

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Lint and test your code.

Copyright (c) 2024-2025 Ferdinand Prantl

Licensed under the MIT license.