Failed to install native modules with Node installed via Snap

[leafac]

I installed the node snap from channel 15/stable using the Ubuntu Software GUI. I have Python and the build-essential apt package installed, so I have a working setup for native modules in Node.js. Yet, the installation of native modules (for example, sharp and better-sqlite3) failed with no helpful error messages (not even in the log files); it just says that it failed to run the installation scripts.

I tried the deb packages and they worked, so it must have to do with the Snap.

What could be going on?

[rvagg]

Maybe you could share your log messages and we can see? And also details on Linux distribution (plain Ubuntu?) and version would be informative.

There is a problem with snaps building addons in that the snap has its own toolchain and set of libraries, so when running node you're not using your standard system libraries, but those that are inside the snap isolation environment. This is just how snaps work and lets them be consistent across OSs and versions, but it leads to dynamic library issues if things don't line up quite right. Generally if you have a complex environment and want to do addons then you're probably better off not using the snap.

[leafac]

Maybe you could share your log messages and we can see? And also details on Linux distribution (plain Ubuntu?) and version would be informative.

Isn’t it annoying when people open an issue saying “it doesn’t work,” but don’t include the error message? 😛

I’m sorry about that. I didn’t include the error messages because I wasn’t in front of the Ubuntu machine when I opened the issue. Also, I don’t think the error messages are very helpful in this case.

Here’s what’s going on:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 20.10
Release:	20.10
Codename:	groovy

$ uname -a
Linux leafac-ubuntu 5.8.0-44-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Tue Feb 9 06:29:41 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I have the build tools necessary to install native Node.js extensions (I installed the build-essential package with apt):

$ gcc --version
gcc (Homebrew GCC 5.5.0_7) 5.5.0
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

$ make --version
GNU Make 4.3
Built for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Copyright (C) 1988-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

$ python3 --version
Python 3.8.6

I installed the Node.js snap with the Ubuntu Software application. I chose Source 15/stable.

If I try to install a package that has no native part, it works fine:

$ node --version
v15.11.0

$ npm --version
7.6.0

$ npm i @leafac/html

added 2 packages, and audited 3 packages in 3s

found 0 vulnerabilities

This proves that the installation succeeded. But then, if I try to install sharp, which is a native module:

$ npm i sharp
npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path /tmp/node-snap/node_modules/sharp
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command sh -c (node install/libvips && node install/dll-copy && prebuild-install) || (node-gyp rebuild && node install/dll-copy)

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/leafac/.npm/_logs/2021-03-08T10_34_27_422Z-debug.log

And the contents of the log are the following:

$ cat /home/leafac/.npm/_logs/2021-03-08T10_34_27_422Z-debug.log
0 verbose cli [
0 verbose cli   '/snap/node/3836/bin/node',
0 verbose cli   '/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/npm',
0 verbose cli   'i',
0 verbose cli   'sharp'
0 verbose cli ]
1 info using [email protected]
2 info using [email protected]
3 timing config:load:defaults Completed in 1ms
4 timing config:load:file:/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/lib/node_modules/npm/npmrc Completed in 10ms
5 timing config:load:builtin Completed in 10ms
6 timing config:load:cli Completed in 2ms
7 timing config:load:env Completed in 0ms
8 timing config:load:file:/tmp/node-snap/.npmrc Completed in 0ms
9 timing config:load:project Completed in 1ms
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19 verbose npm-session d2a8ac6480e876a4
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416 info run [email protected] install node_modules/sharp (node install/libvips && node install/dll-copy && prebuild-install) || (node-gyp rebuild && node install/dll-copy)
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425 verbose stack Error: command failed
425 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/promise-spawn/index.js:64:27)
425 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:378:20)
425 verbose stack     at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1067:16)
425 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:301:5)
426 verbose pkgid [email protected]
427 verbose cwd /tmp/node-snap
428 verbose Linux 5.8.0-44-generic
429 verbose argv "/snap/node/3836/bin/node" "/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/npm" "i" "sharp"
430 verbose node v15.11.0
431 verbose npm  v7.6.0
432 error code 1
433 error path /tmp/node-snap/node_modules/sharp
434 error command failed
435 error command sh -c (node install/libvips && node install/dll-copy && prebuild-install) || (node-gyp rebuild && node install/dll-copy)
436 verbose exit 1

I also tried to install Node.js via apt (https://github.com/nodesource/distributions/blob/master/README.md) and via nvm. Both worked. So the issue seems to be the snap.

There is a problem with snaps building addons in that the snap has its own toolchain and set of libraries, so when running node you're not using your standard system libraries, but those that are inside the snap isolation environment. This is just how snaps work and lets them be consistent across OSs and versions, but it leads to dynamic library issues if things don't line up quite right. Generally if you have a complex environment and want to do addons then you're probably better off not using the snap.

What do you consider to be a “complex environment”? Do you think that native extensions like sharp are complex? It’s completely understandable if that’s the case. But I’m not doing anything fancy over here: I just have a fresh Ubuntu installation and the Node.js snap installed via Ubuntu Software.

---

Thanks for the help over here; it’s nice of you 😄

[rvagg]

I ran into this problem myself today and this is how I ended up solving it:

• Built a simple Docker container based on ubuntu18 (the Node snap is based on core18)
• Added in the version of Node I was using from the NodeSource distributions (could also just grab a binary tarball from nodejs.org)
• npm i -g node-gyp
• Installed make gcc g++
• Tagged the image

Then using that image:

• docker run -ti --rm -v $(pwd):/opt <image> bash
• cd /opt/ (or sub-path you want to rebuild)
• node-gyp rebuild
• exit

Then you end up with a binary that's based on the 18.04 toolchain which is good enough for newer systems.

Previously I've resorted to a non-Snap version of node to work around problems like this, but it kind of needs a better answer than that .. this is slightly better.

A thought I had while doing this is that offering some images via Docker Hub for doing this a bit more automatically might be nice. Perhaps an image that you can just docker run -ti --rm -v $(pwd):/opt node-core18-addon-rebuilder and it'll do a node-gyp rebuild in your current directory and exit. A Dockerfile for that should be pretty simple.

[hperrin]

It seems I'm running into the same issue trying to install Haraka.

root@hperrin-ideapad:~# npm install -g Haraka
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: this library is no longer supported
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: The querystring API is considered Legacy. new code should use the URLSearchParams API instead.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: Please upgrade  to version 7 or higher.  Older versions may use Math.random() in certain circumstances, which is known to be problematic.  See https://v8.dev/blog/math-random for details.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: request has been deprecated, see https://github.com/request/request/issues/3142
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: Please upgrade to @mapbox/node-pre-gyp: the non-scoped node-pre-gyp package is deprecated and only the @mapbox scoped package will recieve updates in the future
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: This version of tar is no longer supported, and will not receive security updates. Please upgrade asap.
npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path /usr/local/lib/node_modules/Haraka/node_modules/iconv
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command sh -c node-gyp rebuild

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2021-09-28T21_56_29_894Z-debug.log

[rvagg]

What do you consider to be a “complex environment”? Do you think that native extensions like sharp are complex?

Actually, to be honest, just a native extension raises the level of complexity enough that this gets annoying really quickly. The Node.js executable is running in a very specific environment, with its own libc and other pieces local to the Snap. Then your addons are built using intelligence garnered from the broader system environment, not properly taking into consideration the constrained environment of the Snap. That's where mismatches happen - the addon gets built assuming that the libraries on the system are 👌 but then Node.js tries to load the addon into its own constrained environment and borks.

A proper fix here is likely going to involve some gnarly work with https://github.com/nodejs/gyp-next and https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp or maybe an alternative toolchain that can properly take into account the environment when building addons. This is not a simple problem, but I'm sure it's being solved for other platforms/systems that have this dual environment issue where library loading is involved.

Unfortunately I don't know who is going to solve this. Maybe out best bet is to try and loop in folks from the Snap team to see if they have ideas based on experience with other similar setups.

So, very sorry, but I've had to resort to local installs instead of Snap installs whenever I run into problems like this because it gets so messy very quickly when you step outside of vanilla Node.js usage.

[leafac]

@rvagg Thanks for the information 👍