Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.


Warning
titleImportant!
  1. See the installation guide to determine what versions of Node.js are supported by each Profound.js release.
  2. IBM i 7.2 or higher is required for installing Node.js on IBM i.
  3. The yum opensource package manager is required for installing Node.js on IBM i.


Info
titleDon't have yum?

Documentation by IBM on how to install the yum opensource package manager to an IBM i can be found here.

Installing Node.js with yum Package Manager


If yum is properly set up on your system, you can install Node.js by running the following command in a PASE shell:

Code Block
yum install nodejs20

If you would like to install a different version of Node.js, you can simply replace nodejs14 with nodejs20 with the correct version in the command.

...

For example, if NPM shows a message like below, DO NOT follow the steps given to update NPM:


Info
titleDowngrade NPM

If you accidentally changed the version of NPM from that installed by yum, re-install Node.js to set NPM back to normal. For example, to re-install Node.js 14 w/NPM 6:

yum reinstall nodejs14


Node.js on IBM i

Node.js on IBM i is installed in locations like this:

/QOpenSys/pkgs/lib/nodejs14/bin
/QOpenSys/pkgs/lib/nodejs16/bin
/QOpenSys/pkgs/lib/nodejs18/bin

The system-wide default version is a symlink here, which points to one of the above:

/QOpenSys/pkgs/bin/node

Setting System-wide Default

This command is used to select the system-wide default version of Node.js, which sets the above symlink:

Code Block
alternatives --config node

Setting Default Version for a User

To select an alternate version of Node.js, users can simply prepend one of the above directories to the PATH environment variable. An easy way to do that is to add a line like this to the profile file at /home/USER_PROFILE/.profile:

Code Block
export PATH=/QOpenSys/pkgs/lib/nodejs18/bin:$PATH


The commands in the profile file are executed when the shell starts, so the user must exit and log on to a new shell for this to take effect.

Setting Default Version for a Profound.js / PAPI Instance


Instances on IBM i started with STRTCPSVR normally use the system-wide default version of Node.js. This can be overridden using the nodePath directive in the instance configuration file, as documented here.


Changes that Need to be Made When Upgrading

Be sure to update the following when you have completed upgrading to a different Node.js version:

Image Added