How to Install NVM for Node.js on CentOS 7

The Node Version Manager allows admins to easily manage node.js versions. It’s a bash script that has the capability to manage multiple active versions of node.js, with functionality such as installation, executing commands with specific node.js versions, setting the PATH variable to use a specific node.js versions, etc.

• These instructions are intended specifically for installing NVM (Node Version Manager) on a single CentOS 7 node.
• I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Core Managed CentOS 7 server, and I’ll be logged in as root.

Use the following curl command to kick-off the install script:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.25.0/install.sh | bash

At the time of publication, NVM v0.25.0 was the most recent version available. You should check the GitHub project page for the latest release of NVM, and adjust the above command to include the newest version. For example, if the most recent version was 0.30.2, then your command would be similar to:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.30.2/install.sh | bash

After running the above command, you may receive output similar to the following:

Close and reopen your terminal to start using nvm

Either do as the output suggests, and close and reopen your terminal session, or run the following command:

source ~/.bashrc

We can quickly verify that NVM is now installed and working properly with the following command:

nvm --version

Which in this case would yield a result of:

0.25.0

Another very useful command to get you started on node.js management is:

nvm help