{"id":1028,"date":"2026-04-20T16:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/how-to-change-node-js-version-on-cpanel-terminal\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:55:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:55:54","slug":"how-to-change-node-js-version-on-cpanel-terminal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/how-to-change-node-js-version-on-cpanel-terminal\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Change Node.js Version on cPanel Terminal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Some cPanel servers include an outdated system Node.js version (often Node 10 or Node 12). Modern applications frequently require <strong>Node.js 18+<\/strong>, but the default shell environment may still point to the older system version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On cPanel servers that provide <strong>CloudLinux alt-nodejs<\/strong> packages (e.g., alt-nodejs20), you can override the default Node and npm binaries by adding aliases to your <code>.bashrc<\/code> file. This ensures your SSH terminal always uses the correct Node.js version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This article explains how to update your Node.js version using <code>.bashrc<\/code> aliases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>1. Check Your Current Node Version<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Open the cPanel Terminal or connect via SSH:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><code>node -v<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you see something like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><code>v12.x.x<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026your shell is using the system Node version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>2. Locate the alt-nodejs[x] Binaries<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>CloudLinux provides alternative Node.js versions under:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>~ ls \/opt\/alt\/alt-nodejs\n\nalt-nodejs10\/ alt-nodejs12\/ alt-nodejs16\/ alt-nodejs19\/ alt-nodejs22\/ alt-nodejs8\/\nalt-nodejs11\/ alt-nodejs14\/ alt-nodejs18\/ alt-nodejs20\/ alt-nodejs6\/ alt-nodejs9\/\n\n~ cd \/opt\/alt\/alt-nodejs20\/root\/bin\/\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>This directory contains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><code>node<\/code><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><code>npm<\/code><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><code>npx<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These binaries run Node.js 20 regardless of the system default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>3. Add Aliases to <\/strong><code>.bashrc<\/code><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To force your shell to use Node.js 20, add aliases to your <code>.bashrc<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Edit <\/strong><code>.bashrc<\/code><strong>:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>vim ~\/.bashrc\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Add the following lines:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You can add the following lines if not existing previously or update the node version path i.e alt-nodejs12 to alt-nodejs20<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code># User specific aliases and functions\nalias npm=\"\/opt\/alt\/alt-nodejs20\/root\/bin\/npm\"\nalias node=\"\/opt\/alt\/alt-nodejs20\/root\/bin\/node\"\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Save and reload:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>source ~\/.bashrc\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>4. Verify the New Node Version<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Run:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>node -v\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Expected output:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>v20.x.x\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also verify npm:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>npm -v<\/code><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview Some cPanel servers include an outdated system Node.js version (often Node 10 or Node 12). Modern applications frequently require Node.js 18+, but the default shell environment may still point to the older system version. On cPanel servers that provide CloudLinux alt-nodejs packages (e.g., alt-nodejs20), you can override the default&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cpanel","category-node-js"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloudabove.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}