Question

I am doing this with root privileges. But still I am getting access denied error.

hrishikesh@hrishikesh-ubuntu:~$ sudo curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh
[sudo] password for hrishikesh: 
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  7881  100  7881    0     0  12574      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 37174
tar=/bin/tar
version:
tar (GNU tar) 1.25
Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason.
install npm@1.1
fetching: http://registry.npmjs.org/npm/-/npm-1.1.1.tgz
0.6.10
1.1.1
cleanup prefix=/usr/local

All clean!

npm ERR! Error: EACCES, permission denied '/usr/local/bin/npm'
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! System Linux 2.6.38-13-generic
npm ERR! command "/usr/local/bin/node" "/tmp/npm.2959/package/cli.js" "rm" "npm" "-gf"
npm ERR! cwd /tmp/npm.2959/package
npm ERR! node -v v0.6.10
npm ERR! npm -v 1.1.1
npm ERR! path /usr/local/bin/npm
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! message EACCES, permission denied '/usr/local/bin/npm'
npm ERR! errno {}
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /tmp/npm.2959/package/npm-debug.log
npm not ok
npm ERR! error installing npm@1.1.1
npm ERR! error rolling back npm@1.1.1 Error: EACCES, permission denied '/usr/local/bin/npm'

npm ERR! Error: EACCES, permission denied '/usr/local/bin/npm'
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! System Linux 2.6.38-13-generic
npm ERR! command "/usr/local/bin/node" "/tmp/npm.2959/package/cli.js" "install" "-gf"
npm ERR! cwd /tmp/npm.2959/package
npm ERR! node -v v0.6.10
npm ERR! npm -v 1.1.1
npm ERR! path /usr/local/bin/npm
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! message EACCES, permission denied '/usr/local/bin/npm'
npm ERR! errno {}
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /tmp/npm.2959/package/npm-debug.log
npm not ok
It failed
hrishikesh@hrishikesh-ubuntu:~$ 

What do I do?

Answer 1

Try

curl https://npmjs.org/install.sh | sudo sh

Take a look at the NPM readme. Your current command is getting (curl) the script as root. You want to run (sh) the script as root.