node-bin-manager

Manage remote binary dependencies in package.json

Sometimes working with JS ecosystem requires dependencies written with different languages.

With the advent of golang and rust these dependencies are often distributed as single-binary executables from github as a release artifacts.

This tool aims to provide cross-platform npm-like experience with managing these dependencies.

Similar to npm this util-package downloads archives from remote resources, decompress them, and places them to conventional directories.

Best used with single-binary self-contained tools like k6, consul, etc.

Features:

• Load archive from remote resources
• Decompress archive (tar, tar.gz, tar.xz, and zip are supported)
• Filter archive files
• Write archive files into a specified directory (with execution permission)

Content:

• Installation
• Running
• Configuration
• CLI Usage
• Caveats and Limitation
• Contributing

Installation

Install package via npm (for example, globally):

$ npm install node-bin-manager --global

or yarn:

$ yarn global add node-bin-manager

Running

Add new binary dependency

To install new binary dependency run:

$ nbm install <url>

where <url> is URL pointing to publicly accessible archive with required binaries.

Note the OS platform for which binaries are compiled.

By default, node-bin-manager assumes that provided URL points to binaries compiled for current user platform.

After the install command is complete downloaded binary will be placed to ./node_modules/.bin directory and ./package.json will be updated with

{
  "binDependencies": {
    "{bin}": { "{platform}": "{url}" }
  }
}

For example, we need to install k6, our current OS is linux. Then, command

$ nbm install https://github.com/loadimpact/k6/releases/download/v0.26.2/k6-v0.26.2-linux64.tar.gz

will result with file ./node_modules/.bin/k6 and package.json updated with:

{
  "binDependencies": {
    "k6": {
      "linux": "https://github.com/loadimpact/k6/releases/download/v0.26.2/k6-v0.26.2-linux64.tar.gz"
    }
  }
}

Right now k6 binary can be used only by linux users. node-bin-manager doesn't know how to load binaries for other platforms.

We may correct this manualy in our package.json or with commands:

$ nbm install -p darwin https://releases.hashicorp.com/consul/1.7.3/consul_1.7.3_darwin_amd64.zip
$ nbm install -p win32  https://releases.hashicorp.com/consul/1.7.3/consul_1.7.3_windows_amd64.zip

So resulting binDependencies section at package.json look like this:

{
  "binDependencies": {
    "k6": {
      "darwin": "https://github.com/loadimpact/k6/releases/download/v0.26.2/k6-v0.26.2-mac.zip",
      "win32": "https://github.com/loadimpact/k6/releases/download/v0.26.2/k6-v0.26.2-win64.zip",
      "linux": "https://github.com/loadimpact/k6/releases/download/v0.26.2/k6-v0.26.2-linux64.tar.gz"
    }
  }
}

When creating binDependencies configuration by hand, be sure the dependency key matches the name of the resulting executable (without extension). Otherwise, node-bin-manager will not be able to check whether binary exists on install.

Restore all configured binary dependencies

To restore the dependencies specified in package.json use:

$ nbm install

This command will concurrently load all dependencies from package.json matching our OS platform into ./node_modules/.bin directory.

To install binaries on npm install configure scripts in package.json to include

{
  "scripts": {
    "install": "nbm install"
  }
}

Configuration

Dependency configuration is done via json-file (package.json by default).

The file must use the following format (in TypeScript syntax):

{
  // node-bin-manage config section
  binDependencies: {
    // unique dependecy name; should match executable name
    [dependencyKey: string]: {
 
      // directory to put archive contents into
      out?: string,
 
      // array of files in archive to ignore (glob patterns supported)
      exclude?: string[],
 
      // array of files in archive to save (glob patterns supported)
      include?: string[],
 
      // fallback dependecy URL for all platforms
      url?: string,
 
      // per platform URLs; key match NodeJS platform identifiers: linux, darwin, win32
      [platform: string]?: string,
    }
  }
}

Note that NodeJS uses win32 platform identifier both for x86 and x64 architectures.

node-bin-manager does not take OS architecture into account, providing no support for using x86 and x64 URLs for the same platform. Basically, this means no x86 support.

Feel free to submit a request for this feature in Issues.

exclude patterns take precedence over include ones. For example, if we include **/*.md and exclude **/README.md then README.md will be ignored.

Note that root directory in an archive is considered when matching patterns.

See full config file example in bin.config.json

CLI Usage

Use nbm --help and nbm <command> --help for most up-to-date options

nbm install [url]

Restores all dependencies from the configuration file.

When [url] argument specified, adds provided URL to config and restores only this dependency.

Options

Short	Full	Default	Description
-q	--quiet	false	Suppress all log messages
	--raw	false	Output logs without spinners and colors
	--debug	false	Display additional error information
-f	--force	false	Download binaries even if they already installed
-c	--cwd	.	Path to working directory
	--config	package.json	Path to configuration file
-o	--out	./node_modules/.bin	Path to save all binaries
-k	--key		Name of the dependecy to install (from config)
-p	--platform	current platform	Identifier of the platform to select the binary for
-s	--seq	false	Install next binary only when previous completes (in config order)

Caveats and Limitations

No x86 support

node-bin-manager does not take OS architecture into account, providing no support for using x86 and x64 URLs for the same platform.

Basically, this means no x86 support.

Feel free to submit a request for this feature in Issues.

Not every executable is supported

node-bin-manager designed to work with single-file programs without extra dependencies.

It does not install OS packages (.deb, .msi, etc.). Nor does it install additional dependencies (like Python, Java, etc.).

If the dependency archive contains multiple files, all of them will be extracted to configured directory. But beware of multiple dependencies containing files with the same name. node-bin-manager will not handle this situation and overwrite files in arbitrary order.

To avoid this situation use different out directories or exclude some files.

Detecting installed binaries

node-bin-manager uses the dependency key from the config to determine if it is already installed. So if the dependency key does not refer to any file in an archive, node-bin-manager will load this dependency on every install.

Not every archive-type is supported

node-bin-manager supports only:

• *.tar
• *.tar.gz
• *.tar.xz
• *.zip

no *.tar.bz and *.tar.bz2 support yet

Feel free to submit a request for additional archive types support in Issues.