[bug] "npm create tauri-app" fails on openSUSE Tumbleweed with "Not a directory" error

[ancwrd1]

Describe the bug

Trying to create a project under openSUSE Tumbleweed with npm create tauri-app, it fails with the following error:

error: Not a directory (os error 20)
npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path /tmp
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command sh -c -- create-tauri-app

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/x/.npm/_logs/2022-09-28T16_53_00_647Z-debug-0.log

Same error with any other tool (e.g. yarn).

Reproduction

No response

Expected behavior

No response

Platform and versions

Environment
  › OS: openSUSE 20220926 X64
  › Node.js: 18.9.1
  › npm: 8.19.1
  › pnpm: Not installed!
  › yarn: 1.22.19
  › rustup: 1.25.1
  › rustc: 1.64.0
  › cargo: 1.64.0
  › Rust toolchain: stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu 

Stack trace

No response

Additional context

I tried running it with strace utility and the syscall which fails is:

openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/bin/node18", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_CLOEXEC|O_DIRECTORY) = -1 ENOTDIR (Not a directory)

Node.js installation contains two executables: /usr/bin/node (which seems to be a stub) and /usr/bin/node18 (the real one).
If I rename /usr/bin/node18 to /usr/bin/node then everything works.

This issue is specific to tauri, I tried for example creating other apps like react and it worked.

[amrbashir]

can you upload the full log here?

[ancwrd1]

Sure but I think it's not very helpful. Here is it:
2022-09-28T16_53_00_647Z-debug-0.log

[ancwrd1]

Might be an issue with this line in the create-tauri-app.js:

if (binStem === "node" || binStem === "nodejs") {
   ...
}

[amrbashir]

the logs shows that it fails to invoke create-tauri-app, can you try running inside a directory that isn't /tmp preferably $HOME

Might be an issue with this line in the create-tauri-app.js:

if (binStem === "node" || binStem === "nodejs") {
   ...
}

Nah this is just used to provide a better name for the cli in the help message

[ancwrd1]

I tried that already, the current directory doesn't really matter.
The difference is the nodejs executable name, if it's /usr/bin/node it works, if it's /usr/bin/node18 (invoked by /usr/bin/node) then there is this "not a directory" error.

[amrbashir]

are you using any node manager like nvm or fnm?

[ancwrd1]

No, just installed node.js from the Linux repositories.

But it uses libalternatives method to launch a specific node version, so I can have version 18 and 17 installed at the same time.

The /usr/bin/node stub reads /usr/share/libalternatives/node/18.conf file which looks like:

binary=/usr/bin/node18
man=node18.1

Then it execs this binary replacing itself (execve call).

[ancwrd1]

It's actually pretty simple to reproduce under Linux:

• Rename /usr/bin/node to /usr/bin/node18
• Create /usr/bin/node shell script with the following context:

#!/bin/bash
exec /usr/bin/node18 "$@"

• Mark it as executable with chmod +x /usr/bin/node

[amrbashir]

based on your last reproduction comment, I have this output:

amr - ~ took 4s 
❯ yarn create tauri-app
yarn create v1.22.17
[1/4] Resolving packages...
[2/4] Fetching packages...
[3/4] Linking dependencies...
[4/4] Building fresh packages...

success Installed "create-tauri-app@2.5.0" with binaries:
      - create-tauri-app
[####] 4/4
+✔ Package name · usrbinnode185
error: Not a directory (os error 20)
error Command failed.
Exit code: 1
Command: /home/amr/.yarn/bin/create-tauri-app
Arguments: 
Directory: /home/amr
Output:

info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/create for documentation about this command.

amr - ~ took 23s 
❯                      

You can see the highlighting comment is asking for Package name pre-filled with userbinnode18. this step only happens when a path has been provided to the cli.

So somehow the cli is invoked like this create-tauri-app /usr/bin/node18 so create-tauri-app will use that first argument as a directory to initialize the project in which doesn't exist because it is a file.

Now I don't know why this happens but this seems like an issue with the script which I don't have knowledge/time to debug.

I am using nvm and fnm to manage multiple node versions and they both work fine so maybe libalternative has a bug.

[ancwrd1]

It's not related to libalternative, I have mentioned above that you can reproduce it simply by making a shell script wrapper called /usr/bin/node which calls /usr/bin/node18.