sharp/docs/install.md

Installation

npm install sharp

yarn add sharp

Prerequisites

• Node.js v10+

Prebuilt binaries

Ready-compiled sharp and libvips binaries are provided for use with Node.js v10+ on the most common platforms:

• macOS x64 (>= 10.13)
• Linux x64 (glibc >= 2.17, musl >= 1.1.24)
• Linux ARM64 (glibc >= 2.29)
• Windows

A ~10MB tarball containing libvips and its most commonly used dependencies is downloaded via HTTPS and stored within node_modules/sharp/vendor during npm install.

This provides support for the JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, GIF (input) and SVG (input) image formats.

The following platforms have prebuilt libvips but not sharp:

• Linux ARMv6
• Linux ARMv7 (glibc >= 2.28)

The following platforms require compilation of both libvips and sharp from source:

• Linux x86
• Linux x64 (glibc <= 2.16, includes RHEL/CentOS 6)
• Linux ARM64 (glibc <= 2.28, musl)
• Linux PowerPC
• FreeBSD
• OpenBSD

Common problems

The architecture and platform of Node.js used for npm install must be the same as the architecture and platform of Node.js used at runtime.

The npm install --unsafe-perm flag must be used when installing as root or a sudo user.

The npm install --ignore-scripts=false flag must be used when npm has been configured to ignore installation scripts.

Check the output of running npm install --verbose sharp for useful error messages.

Custom libvips

To use a custom, globally-installed version of libvips instead of the provided binaries, make sure it is at least the version listed under config.libvips in the package.json file and that it can be located using pkg-config --modversion vips-cpp.

For help compiling libvips from source, please see https://libvips.github.io/libvips/install.html#building-libvips-from-a-source-tarball.

The use of a globally-installed libvips is unsupported on Windows.

Building from source

This module will be compiled from source at npm install time when:

• a globally-installed libvips is detected (set the SHARP_IGNORE_GLOBAL_LIBVIPS environment variable to skip this),
• prebuilt binaries do not exist for the current platform and Node.js version, or
• when the npm install --build-from-source flag is used.

Building from source requires:

• C++11 compiler
• node-gyp and its dependencies

Custom prebuilt binaries

This is an advanced approach that most people will not require.

To install the prebuilt sharp binaries from a custom URL, set the sharp_binary_host npm config option or the npm_config_sharp_binary_host environment variable.

To install the prebuilt libvips binaries from a custom URL, set the sharp_libvips_binary_host npm config option or the npm_config_sharp_libvips_binary_host environment variable.

The version subpath and file name are appended to these.

For example, if sharp_libvips_binary_host is set to https://hostname/path and the libvips version is 1.2.3 then the resultant URL will be https://hostname/path/v1.2.3/libvips-1.2.3-platform-arch.tar.gz.

See the Chinese mirror below for a further example.

Chinese mirror

Alibaba provide a mirror site based in China containing binaries for both sharp and libvips.

To use this either set the following configuration:

npm config set sharp_binary_host "https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/sharp"
npm config set sharp_libvips_binary_host "https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/sharp-libvips"
npm install sharp

or set the following environment variables:

npm_config_sharp_binary_host="https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/sharp" \
  npm_config_sharp_libvips_binary_host="https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/sharp-libvips" \
  npm install sharp

FreeBSD

The vips package must be installed before npm install is run.

pkg install -y pkgconf vips

cd /usr/ports/graphics/vips/ && make install clean

Heroku

Add the jemalloc buildpack to reduce the effects of memory fragmentation.

Set NODE_MODULES_CACHE to false when using the yarn package manager.

AWS Lambda

Set the Lambda runtime to nodejs12.x.

The binaries in the node_modules directory of the deployment package must be for the Linux x64 platform.

On machines other than Linux x64, such as macOS and Windows, run the following:

rm -rf node_modules/sharp
npm install --arch=x64 --platform=linux sharp

Alternatively a Docker container closely matching the Lambda runtime can be used:

rm -rf node_modules/sharp
docker run -v "$PWD":/var/task lambci/lambda:build-nodejs12.x npm install sharp

To get the best performance select the largest memory available. A 1536 MB function provides ~12x more CPU time than a 128 MB function.

Electron

Electron provides versions of the V8 JavaScript engine that are incompatible with Node.js. To ensure the correct binaries are used, run the following:

npm install
npx electron-rebuild

Further help can be found at https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/using-native-node-modules