# Using Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 – Part 2: npm Packages

**March 01, 2017**  
By Rafael Eyng

4 minute read time

_This is the second part of a series of posts on [Sonatype Nexus Repository](/content/products/sonatype-nexus-repository/index.html) 3 and how to use it as a [repository](/content/resources/articles/what-are-code-repositories/index.html) for several technologies. Also available is Part 1, Maven Artifacts by Rafael Eyng._

_NOTE: We are constantly improving Sonatype Nexus Repository. This blog may no longer be accurate._ _You can find the latest instructions [here](https://help.sonatype.com/en/sonatype-nexus-repository.html)._

`npm install` can take too long sometimes, so it might be a good idea to have a proxy in your own network. And if you can't just pay the seven dollars/month to host your packages in the official npm private registry, you'll probably benefit from this post.

## Installation

Check out the [first part](/content/blog/using-sonatype-nexus-repository-3-part-1-maven-artifacts/index.html) of this series to see how we installed and ran Sonatype Nexus Repository 3 using a single Docker command. Just do that, and the installation is done.

## Configuring Sonatype Nexus Repository as an npm Repository

What we will do:

- Create a private (hosted) repository for our own packages.
- Create a proxy repository pointing to the official registry.
- Create a group repository to provide all the above repos under a single URL.

I suggest you create a new blob store for each new repository you want to create. That way, the data for every repository will be in a different folder in `/nexus-data` (inside the Docker container). But this is not mandatory for it to work.

### Private Repository

A private repository is a repository for npm packages that your team develops.

Create a new npm (hosted) repository and configure it like so:

The deployment policy "Allow redeploy" above might look somewhat polemic, so you might want to set it to "Disable redeploy." In my use case, it makes sense to use "Allow redeploy," since we keep a version on Sonatype Nexus Repository always updated with the status of the master branch redeployed in our continuous integration (CI) flow.

### Proxy Repository

A proxy repository in this case is a repository that proxies everything you download from the official npm registry. Next time you download the same [dependency](/content/resources/articles/what-are-software-dependencies/index.html), it will be cached in your Sonatype Nexus Repository.

Create a new npm (proxy) repository and configure it like so:

### Group Repository

This will group all the above repositories and provide you with a single URL to configure your clients to download from/deploy to.

Create a new npm (group) repository and configure it like so:

You can create as many repositories as you need and group them all in the group repository, but for npm I don't think you will need more than one proxy and one private repository.

## Configuring Your Clients and Projects to Use Your Sonatype Nexus Repository

For npm, we will configure the repository per project (unlike Maven, that has some global configs, for instance). I believe you can configure the authentication globally in your machine, with `npm addUser`, but I didn't go that way for simplicity.

If you have a project where you only want to **download** dependencies from Sonatype Nexus Repository, create a `.npmrc` file at your project's root with:

```
registry=http://your-host:8081/repository/npm-group/
_auth=YWRtaW46YWRtaW4xMjM=
```

`_auth=YWRtaW46YWRtaW4xMjM=` is the base64 hash for the credentials (admin/admin123). If you use a different set of credentials, you should compute your own hash with:

```
echo -n 'myuser:mypassword' | openssl base64
```

You have to set a user so you can publish packages. If you do this from your local machine, `npm publish` will use your user configured in `~/.npmrc` (in your home, not in your project). If you don't have this configuration, or want to publish from CI, you can set an `email=any@email.com` configuration in your project's `.npmrc`. Really, any email.

If you have a project that you want to **publish** to your Sonatype Nexus Repository, put this in `package.json`:

```
{
  ...
  "publishConfig": {
    "registry": "http://your-host:8081/repository/npm-private/"
  }
}
```

Note that you publish to your private repo, but when you download, you can point to your group repo, so both your own packages and the packages from the official repo will be available from a single URL.

Now if you run in your projects:

```
npm install
# or
npm publish
```

your `npm` will point to your Sonatype Nexus Repository instance.

## Installing npm Packages Globally

Run:

```
npm --registry http://your-host:8081/repository/npm-group/ install -g your-pac
```

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Written by **Rafael Eyng**