npm: not found on jenkins agent, but available through ssh - linux

Question

I am trying to set up a jenkins pipeline that utilizes multiple agents. The agents are ubuntu instances living in a cloud tenancy (openstack). When trying to run some npm commands on some of the instances, I am getting the error npm: not found. I've read multiple other threads, but I am struggling to understand why npm might not be found. I set these instances up myself, and I know I installed all requirements, including node and npm.
Let's say I have 2 nodes - agent1 at IP1, and agent2 at IP2. They both have a user login with username cooluser1. When I do an ssh cooluser1#IP1 or ssh cooluser1#IP2, in either case, running npm -v gives me a proper node version (6.14.13). However, in my pipeline, npm is not found in the IP2 instance. Here's my pipline script:
pipeline {
agent {
node {
label 'agent1'
}
}
stages {
stage('Build'){
steps {
sh 'hostname -I'
sh 'echo "$USER"'
sh 'echo "$PATH"'
sh 'npm -v'
}
}
stage ('Run Tests'){
parallel {
stage('Running tests in parallel') {
agent {
node {
label 'agent2'
}
}
steps {
sh 'hostname -I'
sh 'echo "$USER"'
sh 'echo "$PATH"'
sh 'npm -v'
}
}
stage {
// more stuff running on another agent (agent3)
}
}
}
}
}
As you can see, in both the main agent agent1, and in the parallel stages, I run the same code, which checks the host IP, the username, the path, and the npm version. The IPs are as expected - IP1 and IP2. The $USER in both cases is indeed cooluser1. The path looks something like this:
// agent1
+ echo
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
// agent2
+ echo
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
A bit strange, but identical in both cases.
However, when I get to npm --v, for agent1, I get a version number, and any npm commands I want to run are workoing. but in agent2, I get npm: not found, and the pipeline fails if I try to use any npm commands. The full error is here:
+ npm -v
/home/vine/workspace/tend-multibranch_jenkins-testing#tmp/durable-d2a0251e/script.sh: 1: /home/vine/workspace/tend-multibranch_jenkins-testing#tmp/durable-d2a0251e/script.sh: npm: not found
But I clearly saw with ssh cooluser1#IP2 that npm is available in that machine to that user.
What might be going wrong here?

Answer 1

I will propose to you to install nodejs plugin, configure any nodejs version you want in 'manage jenkins' -> 'global tools configurations' and set nodejs in pipeline:
pipeline {
agent any
tools {
nodejs 'NodeJS_14.17.1'
}
stages {
stage ('nodejs test') {
steps {
sh 'npm -v'
}
}
}
}