In case the npm registry goes down, it’s wise to have a backup registry.

installation

ssh into your server.

run npm i -g verdaccio. a free private npm registry

configuration

edit the main configuration file, located at ~/.config/verdaccio/config.yaml.

for security reasons, replace all occurrences of $all to $authenticated.

in vim you would run something like this:

s/\$all/\$authenticated/gc

gc for “global” and “confirm” replacement, so that you double check if you really want to replace the occurrence.

authentication with htpasswd

set up a ~/htpasswd file with the allowed users. you can create a config using this secure htpasswd generator (it’s the recommended one).

add the resulting line to the ~/htpasswd file.

now instruct verdaccio to use that file, using the auth directive:

auth:
  htpasswd:
    file: $REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_HOME_PATH/htpasswd
    # Maximum amount of users allowed to register, defaults to "+inf".
    # You can set this to -1 to disable registration.
    max_users: -1

web interface

using the htpasswd file you have enabled registry access using the npm cli and http access to the web dashboard.

for the web dashboard to be available on the web, you need to configure the listen directive:

listen:
  - npm.YOUR_COMPANY.com:4873

use http if you feel so inclined. local network addresses if you’re behind a proxy.

npm client setup

you could manually add a line to the .npmrc file, but I used:

npm adduser --registry https://npm.YOUR_COMPANY.com:4873

authenticate to it and you should be good to go.

this will set the npm registry in your .npmrc to “https://npm.YOUR_COMPANY.com” and add a line to authenticate to it:

//npm.YOUR_COMPANY.com/:_authToken="[AUTH_TOKEN]"

keep it running

personally used pm2, but you have more options like forever or systemd:

pm2 start --name VERDACCIO verdaccio

pm2 save
pm2 startup

reverse proxy with haproxy

if haproxy terminates your SSL requests, you can put verdaccio behind that.

snippet from the haproxy.cfg, your backend for npm could look like this:

backend npm
  option forwardfor
  http-request set-header X-Forwarded-Proto https
  server npm1 npm.YOUR_COMPANY:4873 check

logo from https://verdaccio.org/docs/en/logo