What is NPM Registry?

An NPM registry is a centralized repository for storing and distributing JavaScript packages, accessible to developers for dependency management in their projects. There are two main types of NPM registries

Public NPM Registry:

A public registry is a network accessible to all users of NPM. This means that anyone can download the library and incorporate it into their codebase. Public registries are ideal for open-source projects with many contributors. To install a package from a public registry, simply use the command. This command will download the latest version of lodash library from the public registry in NPM, which will be stored in the node_modules folder of the project.

npm install lodash

Private NPM Registry :

A private registry is a private place where only selected people can only access the library and use in their codebase. Private registry is often used by companies which are developing some commercial software, A good example is Spotify, It utilizes some opensource libraries and while also uses some libraries which are private withing their development team.

How to Set Up a Private NPM Registry

In this article we will learn how to install and configure a private NPM registry, and control authentication and access controls to users, also we will learn how to publish packages to npm and download and use them in our project. In this article, we will use Verdaccio, a lightweight and easy-to-use software. We will also learn how to create user accounts, and securely push and download packages from our server.

Table of Content

  • What is NPM Registry?
  • Choosing a Registry Solution
  • Installation Steps
  • User Access Control
  • Publishing Packages
  • Securing Your Registry
  • Conclusion

Similar Reads

What is NPM Registry?

An NPM registry is a centralized repository for storing and distributing JavaScript packages, accessible to developers for dependency management in their projects. There are two main types of NPM registries...

Choosing a Registry Solution

Verdaccio is one of the best solution for hosting private NPM registry due to several reasons...

Installation Steps

Step 1: First install the Verdaccio a local private npm registry. We will install Verdaccio globally on the system using the -g flag indicating that the package should be installed globally. We are installing it globally to increase ease of use when working on different projects....

User Access Control

To add a user to this registry, we will run the following command. This will provide a prompt asking for your username, password, email address. Next we will login into the admin panel through the login page....

Publishing Packages

To publish our package to our private registry, we will use a sample package as an example with the following file structure....

Securing Your Registry

No want their private repository / registry full of their code to get breached, so Verdaccio also offers many ways to secure our NPM registry, many of them are listed below :...

Conclusion

In this article we saw how to set up a private NPM registry using Verdaccio which can help us manage proprietary software packages safely. A private registry can sometimes offer more flexibility when dealing with private data like API keys, Tokens and environment variables. And we can easily download them, the only change will be to change the registry with the –registry flag to download a package from the registry. Verdaccio also caches all dependencies on demand and seep up installation in local and private network, We can also use a variety of plugins to customize our needs....

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