Disclaimer: I take no responsiblity for any damages or any other liability. These are only the steps that I took, if you follow them, you do so at entirely your own risk.
First access you server’s shell through SSH. Instructions for cPanel are here. I’m on Windows 10, so I used PuTTY.
By the time you’re reading this, GoDaddy may already install Node.js. So, lets make sure node, npm or nvm are not already installed. In the bash shell enter:
which node
which npm
which nvm
If they return nothing you’re good to carry on.
Node Version Manager allows Node.js installation without the need for root access via the sudo.
I installed this in my home directory i.e. /home/username/ to get here you can enter. To install enter in bash:
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh | bash
Check the NVM GitHub page for instructions on installing a newer version
To make sure it’s installed enter
nvm --version
Now we can get around to installing Node.js . To install the latest version enter in bash:
nvm install node
You can now set this as the default via bash:
nvm alias default node
To check that worked enter in bash:
node -v
npm -v
Both should return their versions. Before we get our hopes up, we’ll likely need to do some configuration.
Once I’d finally got Node.js installed I encountered problems running NPM packages globally. The solution was to add some lines to environment variables.
The default location for global packages is home/yourusername/local/bin. You’ll be able to see where your global packages are installed. To check if that’s needed enter in bash:
npm list -g
If you’re receiving the message along the lines of not found in $PATH you will be unable to run global packages.
To fix that add the following line to the file .bashrc which is located in your home directory (remember to alter it if your global package directory is different):
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/local/bin"