Updating node v18 to v20 Ubuntu.. root and non-root showing different versions

Hi Greg,

I believe that this is a standard thing when using NVM.

NVM installations are typically user-specific, meaning the Node versions installed and managed by NVM for one user are not automatically available for other users, including the root user.

If you intend for the root user to also use NVM to manage Node versions, you will need to install NVM separately for the root user. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Switch to the root user:

   sudo su -
   

2. Install NVM: Follow the same installation process you did for the non-root user. You can find the installation command on the NVM GitHub page, usually:

   curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.1/install.sh | bash
   

3. Close and reopen your terminal to start using nvm, or run:

   export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
   [ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm
   [ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"  # This loads nvm bash_completion
   

4. Install and use the desired Node version:

   nvm install v20.12.2
   nvm use v20.12.2
   

If you do not want to install NVM for the root user, avoid using sudo with NVM-managed Node commands. NVM and sudo typically do not work well together because sudo does not have the same environment variables as your user. Therefore, sudo node -v might refer to a different Node installation.

If configuring NVM for root isn’t desirable, another approach is to install Node.js globally using a package manager which will be available system-wide, including for the root user:

1. Uninstall the current system Node.js (if it was installed and not managed by NVM):

   sudo apt-get remove nodejs
   

2. Install Node.js globally:

   curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
   sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
   

3. Verify the installation:

   node -v  # Should show v20.x.x
   

If you cannot install NVM or do not want to change the global Node version for the root, consider setting an alias in the root’s shell configuration file (like .bashrc or .bash_profile) to explicitly point to the Node version managed by NVM for the non-root user:

echo 'alias node="/home/nonrootuser/.nvm/versions/node/v20.12.2/bin/node"' >> /root/.bashrc
source /root/.bashrc

Adjust /home/nonrootuser to the actual path where the non-root user’s home directory is located.

Let me know how it goes!

Best,

Bobby