How to run pnpm with not root user

[stychu]

Hi there I just found about pnpm and it was a saver for my problem that I faced with npm and yarn.
One problem tho I have right now is how to build Docker Image with non privileged user with pnpm.

Previously I had this DockerFile

FROM node:14.17.3-slim

# build args
ARG NPM_AUTH_TOKEN
ARG HOME=/home/app
ARG NPMRC_PATH=$HOME/.npmrc

# setup unprivileged user
RUN useradd -Umrd $HOME app
WORKDIR $HOME
USER app

# copy configuration
COPY --chown=app:app "bin" "bin"
COPY --chown=app:app "package.json" "package-lock.json" "webpack.config.js" ".babelrc" ./

RUN ./bin/write_npmrc && \
    npm ci --production=false

ENV NODE_ENV=development
VOLUME ["$HOME/config", "$HOME/log", "$HOME/src"]
CMD ["npm", "start"]
EXPOSE 9000

With pnpm it becomes a bit more complicated because as soon as I install pnpm I get Permission denied for the npm and build fails. And Instead I have to remove my "Setup for unprivileged user" and use root instead to be able to successfully build the image.

FROM node:14.17.3-slim

# build args
ARG NPM_AUTH_TOKEN
ARG HOME=/home/app
ARG NPMRC_PATH=$HOME/.npmrc

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y curl \
 && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN curl -f https://get.pnpm.io/v6.16.js | node - add --global pnpm

# setup unprivileged user
WORKDIR $HOME
USER root

# copy configuration
COPY "bin" "bin"
COPY "package.json" "pnpm-lock.yaml" "webpack.config.js" ".babelrc" ./

RUN ./bin/write_npmrc && \
    pnpm install --frozen-lockfile

ENV NODE_ENV=development
VOLUME ["$HOME/config", "$HOME/log", "$HOME/src"]
CMD ["pnpm", "start"]
EXPOSE 9000

If I want to use this

RUN useradd -Umrd $HOME app
WORKDIR $HOME
USER app

Then I'm unable to install with pnpm due to Permission Denied access.
How can I solve this

[zkochan]

Try to install pnpm with an unprivileged user or try another installation method.