Configures NPM to allow global package installs without sudo, thereby avoiding the typical permissions issue with updating node packages

install-node-wo-sudo

# Install NodeJS and related on Ubuntu without requiring sudo on subsequent "npm -g" installs
# Went this direction when certain packages where trying to update global files owned by root...
# ... since the global packages were installed with sudo

# if using Vagrant, recommend to set "privileged: false" on the provisioning script where this code resides

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get -y install git nodejs build-essential
mkdir -p ~/.npm_packages
npm set prefix $HOME/.npm_packages
echo "export NPM_PACKAGES=~/.npm_packages" >> ~/.bash_aliases
echo "export NODE_PATH=~/.npm_packages/lib/node_modules" >> ~/.bash_aliases
echo "export PATH=$PATH:~/.npm_packages/bin:~/.npm_packages/lib/node_modules" >> ~/.bash_aliases
source ~/.bash_aliases

# once this is done, you can install npm packages globally without requiring sudo... happy trails!