OS X package management, without sudo

Recently, I had to use a shared company MacBook for a web dev project. Knowing this shared device would only be mine for a few weeks, I wanted to be able to delete everything when I was done.

I created a new OS X user and started looking into how I could install Homebrew and npm for that user. In doing this I found that both package managers could now be used without sudo. Here’s how.

Homebrew

Homebrew doesn’t normally require sudo permissions, but installs to /usr/local/bin which won’t be deleted when the current user is deleted.

Installing Homebrew for the current user is as easy as cloning the repository and adding it’s bin to your $PATH. I chose to install it in ~/homebrew, to do the same fire up a new shell in your home directory (or type cd) and enter:

git clone https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew

Next you need to add ~/homebrew/bin to your $PATH so you can use the brew command, as well as anything else you choose to install with brew install. The simplest way to do this is to add this line to the end of your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file:

export PATH="${HOME}/homebrew/bin"

You will need to start a new terminal session for the changes to take effect. After which you can test that it works by running brew update and, for example, brew install tree.

npm

npm is installed with Node.js, so if you followed the instructions to install Homebrew the easiest way to install both is:

brew install node

This installs npm to ~/homebrew/bin/npm, however npm will still try to install global packages to /usr/local/bin. You can change this behaviour by changing npm’s ‘prefix’ setting to a new folder in your home directory:

mkdir ~/npm-global
npm config set prefix "~/npm-global"

As with Homebrew, you need to add ~/npm-global/bin to your $PATH so any programs you install with npm install --global can be found. The simplest way to do this is to add this line to the end of your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file:

export PATH="${HOME}/npm-global/bin"

Again, you will need to start a new terminal session for the changes to take effect. Test if npm works without sudo by running, for example, npm install -g vtop.

Ruby

Installing Ruby gems is easier because it’s supported out of the box. To install for the current user only, use the --user-install flag:

gem install jekyll --user-install

The gem command will warn you that the install directory in ~/.gem/ruby is not in your $PATH. The exact path you need to add depends on the Ruby version you have installed, but you will need add something like this to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file:

export PATH="${HOME}/.gem/ruby/2.0.0/bin"

Desktop Applications

Finally, you can also install OS X apps per-user if you wish. By default, if you’re installing from a .dmg the app will ask you to drag the program to /Applications. Each OS X user also has a ~/Applications folder in their home directory, simply dragging new apps there will install them for the current user only.