# Permission Denied after successful npm install

**URL:** <https://discuss.circleci.com/t/permission-denied-after-successful-npm-install/30928>\
**Category:** Build Environment\
**Created:** [June 18, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/permission-denied-after-successful-npm-install/30928 "2019-06-18T16:14:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![djakaitis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/djakaitis/32/31066_2.png) [@djakaitis](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/djakaitis)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/permission-denied-after-successful-npm-install/30928/1 "2019-06-18T16:14:42Z")

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This is related to the following: [Yarn: Permission denied](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/yarn-permission-denied/20160)

We run `sudo npm install -g serverless` in an earlier step and then get randomly hit with bash permission denials like this:

 ![46%20PM](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/original/3X/0/1/0177b03452d382e969370c9b7c22b78732e8fcdd.png)

There is no consistency behind the failures and can be easily resolved by a re-run. Obviously this isn’t ideal as it distracts our dev team. Has anyone found solutions to this?

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**Author:** ![KyleTryon](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/kyletryon/32/9977_2.png) [@KyleTryon](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/KyleTryon)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/permission-denied-after-successful-npm-install/30928/2 "2019-06-18T17:06:49Z")

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Hello @djakaitis,

Welcome to the forum.

Was serverless installed as a global npm module?  
`npm install -g serverless`

You will need to install CLI tools as global modules to use them directly. Otherwise you could point to serverless via  
`.node_modules/.../sls package`

Let us know how it works out 👍

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![djakaitis](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/djakaitis/32/31066_2.png) [@djakaitis](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/djakaitis)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 5:20pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/permission-denied-after-successful-npm-install/30928/3 "2019-06-18T17:20:55Z")

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@KyleTryon Yes – sorry I missed the -g flag in my original post. We are installing globally.

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**Author:** ![FelicianoTech](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/felicianotech/32/21348_2.png) [@FelicianoTech](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/FelicianoTech)\
**Post date:** [June 20, 2019, 3:47am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/permission-denied-after-successful-npm-install/30928/4 "2019-06-20T03:47:42Z")

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Installing the npm module globally should also mean that using the binary would require `sudo` no? As in:

```bash
sudo sls package

```

This wouldn’t explain why it sometimes works though.

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**Author:** ![RodrigueA](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/rodriguea/32/23353_2.png) [@RodrigueA](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/RodrigueA)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 8:14am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/permission-denied-after-successful-npm-install/30928/5 "2019-10-08T08:14:07Z")

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Was this issue ever solved?

We are installing Serverless with

`sudo npm install -g serverless`

and also seeing this intermittent error when calling `sls deploy` subsequently.