.Dd 2018

.Nm node

.Nd server-side JavaScript runtime

.Nm node

.Op Ar options

.Op Ar v8-options

.Op Fl e Ar string | Ar script.js | Fl

.Op Fl -

.Op Ar arguments ...

.Nm node

.Cm inspect

.Op Fl e Ar string | Ar script.js | Fl | Ar <host>:<port>

.Ar ...

.Nm node

.Op Fl -v8-options

Node.js is a set of libraries for JavaScript which allows it to be used outside of the browser.

It is primarily focused on creating simple, easy-to-build network clients and servers.

.Pp

Execute

.Nm

without arguments to start a REPL.

.Bl -tag -width 6n

.It Sy -

Alias for stdin, analogous to the use of - in other command-line utilities.

The executed script is read from stdin, and remaining arguments are passed to the script.

.It Fl -

Indicate the end of command-line options.

Pass the rest of the arguments to the script.

.Pp

If no script filename or eval/print script is supplied prior to this, then

the next argument will be used as a script filename.

.It Fl -abort-on-uncaught-exception

Aborting instead of exiting causes a core file to be generated for analysis.

.It Fl -completion-bash

Print source-able bash completion script for Node.js.

.It Fl -cpu-prof

Start the V8 CPU profiler on start up, and write the CPU profile to disk

before exit. If

.Fl -cpu-prof-dir

is not specified, the profile will be written to the current working directory

with a generated file name.

.It Fl -cpu-prof-dir

The directory where the CPU profiles generated by

.Fl -cpu-prof

will be placed.

.It Fl -cpu-prof-interval

The sampling interval in microseconds for the CPU profiles generated by

.Fl -cpu-prof .

The default is

.Sy 1000 .

.It Fl -cpu-prof-name

File name of the V8 CPU profile generated with

.Fl -cpu-prof

.It Fl -enable-fips

Enable FIPS-compliant crypto at startup.

Requires Node.js to be built with

.Sy ./configure --openssl-fips .

.It Fl -es-module-specifier-resolution

Select extension resolution algorithm for ES Modules; either 'explicit' (default) or 'node'

.It Fl -experimental-modules

Enable experimental ES module support and caching modules.

.It Fl -experimental-policy

Use the specified file as a security policy.

.It Fl -experimental-repl-await

Enable experimental top-level

.Sy await

keyword support in REPL.

.It Fl -experimental-report

Enable experimental

.Sy diagnostic report

feature.

.It Fl -experimental-vm-modules

Enable experimental ES module support in VM module.

.It Fl -force-fips

Force FIPS-compliant crypto on startup

(Cannot be disabled from script code).

Same requirements as

.Fl -enable-fips .

.It Fl -frozen-intrinsics

Enable experimental frozen intrinsics support.

.It Fl -heapsnapshot-signal Ns = Ns Ar signal

Generate heap snapshot on specified signal.

.It Fl -heap-prof

Start the V8 heap profiler on start up, and write the heap profile to disk

before exit. If

.Fl -heap-prof-dir

is not specified, the profile will be written to the current working directory

with a generated file name.

.It Fl -heap-prof-dir

The directory where the heap profiles generated by

.Fl -heap-prof

will be placed.

.It Fl -heap-prof-interval

The average sampling interval in bytes for the heap profiles generated by

.Fl -heap-prof .

The default is

.Sy 512 * 1024 .

.It Fl -heap-prof-name

File name of the V8 heap profile generated with

.Fl -heap-prof

.It Fl -http-parser Ns = Ns Ar library

Chooses an HTTP parser library. Available values are

.Sy llhttp

or

.Sy legacy .

.It Fl -icu-data-dir Ns = Ns Ar file

Specify ICU data load path.

Overrides

.Ev NODE_ICU_DATA .

.It Fl -input-type Ns = Ns Ar type

Set the module resolution type for input via --eval, --print or STDIN.

.It Fl -inspect-brk Ns = Ns Ar [host:]port

Activate inspector on

.Ar host:port

and break at start of user script.

.It Fl -inspect-port Ns = Ns Ar [host:]port

Set the

.Ar host:port

to be used when the inspector is activated.

.It Fl -inspect Ns = Ns Ar [host:]port

Activate inspector on

.Ar host:port .

Default is

.Sy 127.0.0.1:9229 .

.Pp

V8 Inspector integration allows attaching Chrome DevTools and IDEs to Node.js instances for debugging and profiling.

It uses the Chrome DevTools Protocol.

.It Fl -loader Ns = Ns Ar file

Specify the

.Ar file

as a custom loader, to load

.Fl -experimental-modules .

.It Fl -max-http-header-size Ns = Ns Ar size

Specify the maximum size of HTTP headers in bytes. Defaults to 8KB.

.It Fl -napi-modules

This option is a no-op.

It is kept for compatibility.

.It Fl -no-deprecation

Silence deprecation warnings.

.It Fl -no-force-async-hooks-checks

Disable runtime checks for `async_hooks`.

These will still be enabled dynamically when `async_hooks` is enabled.

.It Fl -no-warnings

Silence all process warnings (including deprecations).

.It Fl -openssl-config Ns = Ns Ar file

Load an OpenSSL configuration file on startup.

Among other uses, this can be used to enable FIPS-compliant crypto if Node.js is built with

.Sy ./configure --openssl-fips .

.It Fl -pending-deprecation

Emit pending deprecation warnings.

.It Fl -preserve-symlinks

Instructs the module loader to preserve symbolic links when resolving and caching modules other than the main module.

.It Fl -preserve-symlinks-main

Instructs the module loader to preserve symbolic links when resolving and caching the main module.

.It Fl -prof

Generate V8 profiler output.

.It Fl -prof-process

Process V8 profiler output generated using the V8 option

.Fl -prof .

.It Fl -redirect-warnings Ns = Ns Ar file

Write process warnings to the given

.Ar file

instead of printing to stderr.

.It Fl -report-directory

Location at which the

.Sy diagnostic report

will be generated.

.It Fl -report-filename

Name of the file to which the

.Sy diagnostic report

will be written.

.It Fl -report-on-fatalerror

Enables the

.Sy diagnostic report

to be triggered on fatal errors (internal errors within the Node.js runtime such as out of memory) that leads to termination of the application, if

.Sy --experimental-report

is enabled. Useful to inspect various diagnostic data elements such as heap, stack, event loop state, resource consumption etc. to reason about the fatal error.

.It Fl -report-on-signal

Enables

.Sy diagnostic report

to be generated upon receiving the specified (or predefined) signal to the running Node.js process, if

.Sy --experimental-report

is enabled. Default signal is SIGUSR2.

.It Fl -report-signal

Sets or resets the signal for

.Sy diagnostic report

generation (not supported on Windows). Default signal is SIGUSR2.

.It Fl -report-uncaught-exception

Enables

.Sy diagnostic report

to be generated on un-caught exceptions, if

.Sy --experimental-report

is enabled. Useful when inspecting JavaScript stack in conjunction with native stack and other runtime environment data.

.It Fl -throw-deprecation

Throw errors for deprecations.

.It Fl -title Ns = Ns Ar title

Specify process.title on startup.

.It Fl -tls-cipher-list Ns = Ns Ar list

Specify an alternative default TLS cipher list.

Requires Node.js to be built with crypto support. (Default)

.It Fl -tls-max-v1.2

Set default maxVersion to 'TLSv1.2'. Use to disable support for TLSv1.3.

.It Fl -tls-max-v1.3

Set default maxVersion to 'TLSv1.3'. Use to enable support for TLSv1.3.

.It Fl -tls-min-v1.0

Set default minVersion to 'TLSv1'. Use for compatibility with old TLS clients

or servers.

.It Fl -tls-min-v1.1

Set default minVersion to 'TLSv1.1'. Use for compatibility with old TLS clients

or servers.

.It Fl -tls-min-v1.2

Set default minVersion to 'TLSv1.2'. This is the default for 12.x and later,

but the option is supported for compatibility with older Node.js versions.

.It Fl -tls-min-v1.3

Set default minVersion to 'TLSv1.3'. Use to disable support for TLSv1.2 in

favour of TLSv1.3, which is more secure.

.It Fl -trace-deprecation

Print stack traces for deprecations.

.It Fl -trace-event-categories Ar categories

A comma-separated list of categories that should be traced when trace event tracing is enabled using

.Fl -trace-events-enabled .

.It Fl -trace-event-file-pattern Ar pattern

Template string specifying the filepath for the trace event data, it

supports

.Sy ${rotation}

and

.Sy ${pid} .

.It Fl -trace-events-enabled

Enable the collection of trace event tracing information.

.It Fl -trace-sync-io

Print a stack trace whenever synchronous I/O is detected after the first turn of the event loop.

.It Fl -trace-tls

Prints TLS packet trace information to stderr.

.It Fl -trace-warnings

Print stack traces for process warnings (including deprecations).

.It Fl -track-heap-objects

Track heap object allocations for heap snapshots.

.It Fl --unhandled-rejections=mode

Define the behavior for unhandled rejections. Can be one of `strict` (raise an error), `warn` (enforce warnings) or `none` (silence warnings).

.It Fl -use-bundled-ca , Fl -use-openssl-ca

Use bundled Mozilla CA store as supplied by current Node.js version or use OpenSSL's default CA store.

The default store is selectable at build-time.

.Pp

The bundled CA store, as supplied by Node.js, is a snapshot of Mozilla CA store that is fixed at release time.

It is identical on all supported platforms.

.Pp

Using OpenSSL store allows for external modifications of the store.

For most Linux and BSD distributions, this store is maintained by the distribution maintainers and system administrators.

OpenSSL CA store location is dependent on configuration of the OpenSSL library but this can be altered at runtime using environment variables.

.Pp

See

.Ev SSL_CERT_DIR

and

.Ev SSL_CERT_FILE .

.It Fl -v8-options

Print V8 command-line options.

.It Fl -v8-pool-size Ns = Ns Ar num

Set V8's thread pool size which will be used to allocate background jobs.

If set to 0 then V8 will choose an appropriate size of the thread pool based on the number of online processors.

If the value provided is larger than V8's maximum, then the largest value will be chosen.

.It Fl -zero-fill-buffers

Automatically zero-fills all newly allocated Buffer and SlowBuffer instances.

.It Fl c , Fl -check

Check the script's syntax without executing it.

Exits with an error code if script is invalid.

.It Fl e , Fl -eval Ar string

Evaluate

.Ar string

as JavaScript.

.It Fl h , Fl -help

Print command-line options.

The output of this option is less detailed than this document.

.It Fl i , Fl -interactive

Open the REPL even if stdin does not appear to be a terminal.

.It Fl p , Fl -print Ar string

Identical to

.Fl e ,

but prints the result.

.It Fl r , Fl -require Ar module

Preload the specified

.Ar module

at startup.

Follows `require()`'s module resolution rules.

.Ar module

may be either a path to a file, or a Node.js module name.

.It Fl v , Fl -version

Print node's version.

.El

.Bl -tag -width 6n

.It Ev NODE_DEBUG Ar modules...

Comma-separated list of core modules that should print debug information.

.It Ev NODE_DEBUG_NATIVE Ar modules...

Comma-separated list of C++ core modules that should print debug information.

.It Ev NODE_DISABLE_COLORS

When set to

.Ar 1 ,

colors will not be used in the REPL.

.It Ev NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS Ar file

When set, the well-known

.Dq root

CAs (like VeriSign) will be extended with the extra certificates in

.Ar file .

The file should consist of one or more trusted certificates in PEM format.

.Pp

If

.Ar file

is missing or misformatted, a message will be emitted once using

.Sy process.emitWarning() ,

but any errors are otherwise ignored.

.Pp

This environment variable is ignored when `node` runs as setuid root or

has Linux file capabilities set.

.It Ev NODE_ICU_DATA Ar file

Data path for ICU (Intl object) data.

Will extend linked-in data when compiled with small-icu support.

.It Ev NODE_NO_WARNINGS

When set to

.Ar 1 ,

process warnings are silenced.

.It Ev NODE_OPTIONS Ar options...

A space-separated list of command-line

.Ar options ,

which are interpreted as if they had been specified on the command-line before the actual command (so they can be overridden).

Node.js will exit with an error if an option that is not allowed in the environment is used, such as

.Fl -print

or a script file.

.It Ev NODE_PATH Ar directories...

A colon-separated list of

.Ar directories

prefixed to the module search path.

.It Ev NODE_PENDING_DEPRECATION

When set to

.Ar 1 ,

emit pending deprecation warnings.

.It Ev NODE_PRESERVE_SYMLINKS

When set to

.Ar 1 ,

the module loader preserves symbolic links when resolving and caching modules.

.It Ev NODE_REDIRECT_WARNINGS Ar file

Write process warnings to the given

.Ar file

instead of printing to stderr.

Equivalent to passing

.Fl -redirect-warnings Ar file

on command-line.

.It Ev NODE_REPL_HISTORY Ar file

Path to the

.Ar file

used to store persistent REPL history.

The default path is

.Sy ~/.node_repl_history ,

which is overridden by this variable.

Setting the value to an empty string ("" or " ") will disable persistent REPL history.

.It Ev NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED

When set to

.Ar 0 ,

TLS certificate validation is disabled.

.It Ev NODE_V8_COVERAGE Ar dir

When set, Node.js writes JavaScript code coverage information to

.Ar dir .

.It Ev OPENSSL_CONF Ar file

Load an OpenSSL configuration file on startup.

Among other uses, this can be used to enable FIPS-compliant crypto if Node.js is built with

.Sy ./configure --openssl-fips .

.Pp

If the

.Fl -openssl-config

command-line option is used, this environment variable is ignored.

.It Ev SSL_CERT_DIR Ar dir

If

.Fl -use-openssl-ca

is enabled, this overrides and sets OpenSSL's directory containing trusted certificates.

.It Ev SSL_CERT_FILE Ar file

If

.Fl -use-openssl-ca

is enabled, this overrides and sets OpenSSL's file containing trusted certificates.

.It Ev UV_THREADPOOL_SIZE Ar size

Sets the number of threads used in libuv's threadpool to

.Ar size .

.El

Bugs are tracked in GitHub Issues:

.Sy https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues

Copyright Node.js contributors.

Node.js is available under the MIT license.

.Pp

Node.js also includes external libraries that are available under a variety of licenses.

See

.Sy https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/LICENSE

for the full license text.

Website:

.Sy https://nodejs.org/

.Pp

Documentation:

.Sy https://nodejs.org/api/

.Pp

GitHub repository & Issue Tracker:

.Sy https://github.com/nodejs/node

.Pp

IRC (general questions):

.Sy "chat.freenode.net #node.js"

(unofficial)

.Pp

IRC (Node.js core development):

.Sy "chat.freenode.net #node-dev"

Written and maintained by 1000+ contributors:

.Sy https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/AUTHORS