EACCES error when trying to install firebase-tools to Mac Big Sur

Question

I am unable to install firebase-tools on to my Mac Big Sur 11.1. (I have installed LTS Version: 14.17.1 (includes npm 6.14.13)).

I tried both with and without sudo. Both has the ERR! code EACCES Please see below:

% npm install -g firebase-tools

npm WARN deprecated request@2.88.2: request has been deprecated, see https://github.com/request/request/issues/3142
npm WARN deprecated uuid@3.4.0: Please upgrade  to version 7 or higher.  Older versions may use Math.random() in certain circumstances, which is known to be problematic.  See https://v8.dev/blog/math-random for details.
npm WARN deprecated har-validator@5.1.5: this library is no longer supported
npm WARN checkPermissions Missing write access to /usr/local/lib/node_modules
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! syscall access
npm ERR! path /usr/local/lib/node_modules
npm ERR! errno -13
npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'
npm ERR!  [Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'] {
npm ERR!   errno: -13,
npm ERR!   code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR!   syscall: 'access',
npm ERR!   path: '/usr/local/lib/node_modules'
npm ERR! }
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! The operation was rejected by your operating system.
npm ERR! It is likely you do not have the permissions to access this file as the current user
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! If you believe this might be a permissions issue, please double-check the
npm ERR! permissions of the file and its containing directories, or try running
npm ERR! the command again as root/Administrator.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/xxx/.npm/_logs/2021-06-25T07_21_25_511Z-debug.log

I tried with sudo

% sudo npm install -g firebase-tools
Password:
npm WARN deprecated request@2.88.2: request has been deprecated, see https://github.com/request/request/issues/3142
npm WARN deprecated uuid@3.4.0: Please upgrade  to version 7 or higher.  Older versions may use Math.random() in certain circumstances, which is known to be problematic.  See https://v8.dev/blog/math-random for details.
npm WARN deprecated har-validator@5.1.5: this library is no longer supported
/usr/local/bin/firebase -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/firebase-tools/lib/bin/firebase.js

> re2@1.16.0 install /usr/local/lib/node_modules/firebase-tools/node_modules/re2
> install-from-cache --artifact build/Release/re2.node --host-var RE2_DOWNLOAD_MIRROR || npm run rebuild

Trying https://github.com/uhop/node-re2/releases/download/1.16.0/darwin-x64-83.br ...
Writing to build/Release/re2.node ...
Trying https://github.com/uhop/node-re2/releases/download/1.16.0/darwin-x64-83.gz ...
Writing to build/Release/re2.node ...
Building locally ...

> re2@1.16.0 rebuild /usr/local/lib/node_modules/firebase-tools/node_modules/re2
> node-gyp rebuild

gyp WARN EACCES current user ("nobody") does not have permission to access the dev dir "/Users/xxx/Library/Caches/node-gyp/14.17.1"
gyp WARN EACCES attempting to reinstall using temporary dev dir "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/firebase-tools/node_modules/re2/.node-gyp"
gyp WARN install got an error, rolling back install
gyp WARN install got an error, rolling back install
gyp ERR! configure error 
gyp ERR! stack Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/firebase-tools/node_modules/re2/.node-gyp'
gyp ERR! System Darwin 20.2.0
gyp ERR! command "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd /usr/local/lib/node_modules/firebase-tools/node_modules/re2
gyp ERR! node -v v14.17.1
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v5.1.0
gyp ERR! not ok 
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! re2@1.16.0 rebuild: `node-gyp rebuild`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the re2@1.16.0 rebuild script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
(node:68836) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: 1
(Use `node --trace-warnings ...` to show where the warning was created)
(node:68836) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). To terminate the node process on unhandled promise rejection, use the CLI flag `--unhandled-rejections=strict` (see https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#cli_unhandled_rejections_mode). (rejection id: 1)
(node:68836) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.

> protobufjs@6.11.2 postinstall /usr/local/lib/node_modules/firebase-tools/node_modules/protobufjs
> node scripts/postinstall

Answer 1

Try with a different version of node (e.g. v16) If you are using nvm:

nvm i 16

to install nvm:

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash

or

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash