Setting up Verdaccio on DigitalOcean
Tags: cloud, webdev, node, frontenddev
Published: 2019-02-08 08:22:36

---
title: Setting up Verdaccio on DigitalOcean
published: true
tags: cloud,web-development,nodejs,front-end-developmen
canonical_url: https://medium.com/verdaccio/setting-up-verdaccio-on-digitalocean-61b5d08e4f0d
---

This one of the multiple articles I will write about running Verdaccio on multiple platforms.

This time for simplicity I’ve chosen [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/) that provides affordable base prices and if you want to run your own registry, it’s a good option.

### Create a Droplet

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*04T_T0af4mEZrJq4QBKKcQ.png)<figcaption>Choosing an image before creating a droplet</figcaption>

Create a droplet is fairly easy, it just matters to choose an image and click on create, **I personally selected a Node.js 8.10.0 version** to simplify the setup.

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*V1GIMttiMPYuX8FLKuumRg.png)<figcaption>A view of the droplet panel</figcaption>

While the droplet is created, which takes a matter of seconds the next step is to find a way to log in via SSH, you can find credentials in your email. _Keep on mind the droplet provides root access and the next steps I won’t use sudo_.

### Installing Requirements

As first step we have to install [Verdaccio](https://verdaccio.org/) with the following command.

```
npm install --global verdaccio
```

> We will use npm for simplicity, but I’d recommend using other tools as [pnpm](https://pnpm.js.org/) or [yarn](https://yarnpkg.com/en/).

We will handle the **verdaccio** process using the _pm2_ tool that provides handy tools for restarting and monitoring.

```
npm install -g pm2
```

#### Nginx Configuration

To handle the request we will set up _ngnix_ which is really easy to install. I won’t include in this article all steps to setup the web but you can [follow this article](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-nginx-on-ubuntu-16-04).

Once _nginx_ is running in the port 80, we have to modify lightly the configuration file as follow

```
vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

location / {
 proxy\_pass [http://127.0.0.1:4873/](http://127.0.0.1:4873/);
 proxy\_set\_header Host $http\_host;
}
```

_You might pimp this configuration if you wish, but, for simplicity this is good enough for the purpose of this article._

Don’t forget restart _nginx_ in order the changes take affect.

```
systemctl restart nginx
```

Since we are using a proxy, we must update the default configuration provided by **verdaccio** to define our proxy pass domain. Edit the file and add the your domain or IP.

```
vi /root/verdaccio//config.yaml

http\_proxy: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/
```

### Running Verdaccio

Previously we installed pm2 and now is the moment to run _verdaccio_ with the following command.

```
pm2 start `which verdaccio`
```

_Note: notice we are using which due pm2 seems not to be able to run a node global command._

### Using Verdaccio

Verdaccio provides a nice UI to browse your packages you can access via URL, in our case get the IP from the DigitalOcean control panel and access _verdaccio_ like http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ .

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*l5oyR93jMLDOJnYUv88IZg.png)

#### Install packages

npm will use the default registry on install, but we are willing to use our own registry, to achieve that use the --registry argument to provide a different location.

```
npm install --registry http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
```

Other options I’d suggest if you need to switch between registries is using nrm, to install it just do

```
npm install --global nrm
nrm add company-registry [http://xxx.xxx.xxx:4873](http://xxx.xxx.xxx:4873/)
nrm use company-registry
```

With the steps above, you can switch back to other registries in an easy way, for more information just type nrm --help .

#### Publishing Packages

By default verdaccio requires authentication for publishing, thus we need to log in.

```
npm adduser --registry http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
```

Once you are logged, it’s the moment to publish.

```
npm publish --registry http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
```

### Wrapping Up

As you can see, **host a registry is quite cheap and the initial set up might take fairly short time if you have some skills with UNIX**.

> Verdaccio provides you good performance for a small middle team with the default plugins, you might scale for bigger teams if is need it, but I will write about those topics in future articles.

If you are willing to share your experience in our blog writing about **_verdaccio_** being installed on other platforms, just [send me a message over our chat at Discord](http://chat.verdaccio.org) for easy coordination.

* * *