Node.js npm install express error fetch failed

Question

npm install express results in the following error

$ npm install express
npm ERR! fetch failed https://registry.npmjs.org/debug/-/debug-2.1.0.tgz
npm ERR! fetch failed https://registry.npmjs.org/etag/-/etag-1.5.1.tgz
npm ERR! fetch failed https://registry.npmjs.org/methods/-/methods-1.1.0.tgz
npm ERR! fetch failed https://registry.npmjs.org/on-finished/-/on-finished-2.1.1.tgz
npm ERR! fetch failed https://registry.npmjs.org/debug/-/debug-2.1.0.tgz
npm ERR! fetch failed https://registry.npmjs.org/debug/-/debug-2.1.0.tgz
npm ERR! Error: Hostname/IP doesn't match certificate's altnames
npm ERR!     at SecurePair.<anonymous> (tls.js:1389:23)
npm ERR!     at SecurePair.emit (events.js:92:17)
npm ERR!     at SecurePair.maybeInitFinished (tls.js:979:10)
npm ERR!     at CleartextStream.read [as _read] (tls.js:471:13)
npm ERR!     at CleartextStream.Readable.read (_stream_readable.js:340:10)
npm ERR!     at EncryptedStream.write [as _write] (tls.js:368:25)
npm ERR!     at doWrite (_stream_writable.js:225:10)
npm ERR!     at writeOrBuffer (_stream_writable.js:215:5)
npm ERR!     at EncryptedStream.Writable.write (_stream_writable.js:182:11)
npm ERR!     at write (_stream_readable.js:601:24)
npm ERR!     at flow (_stream_readable.js:610:7)
npm ERR!     at Socket.pipeOnReadable (_stream_readable.js:642:5)
npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this *entire* log,
npm ERR! including the npm and node versions, at:
npm ERR!     <http://github.com/npm/npm/issues>

npm ERR! System Linux 3.14.13-c9
npm ERR! command "/home/ubuntu/.nvm/v0.10.33/bin/node" "/home/ubuntu/.nvm/v0.10.33/bin/npm" "install" "express"
npm ERR! cwd /home/ubuntu/workspace
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.33
npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.28
npm ERR! not ok code 0

How to resolve this? There are already many duplicates of this question with INCORRECT answers, I'm sharing this with the below CORRECT answer to clear things up.

Answer 1

The underlying problem (for me and many others) is an outdated version of npm itself

$ npm version
{ http_parser: '1.0',
  node: '0.10.33',
  v8: '3.14.5.9',
  ares: '1.9.0-DEV',
  uv: '0.10.29',
  zlib: '1.2.3',
  modules: '11',
  openssl: '1.0.1j',
  npm: '1.4.28' }

Latest version of npm at time of writing is 2.1.6, so 1.4.28 is outdated. Simply run

$ npm install npm -g
/home/ubuntu/.nvm/v0.10.33/bin/npm -> /home/ubuntu/.nvm/v0.10.33/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js
npm@2.1.11 /home/ubuntu/.nvm/v0.10.33/lib/node_modules/npm

After that npm install express works fine.

$ npm install express
express@4.10.5 node_modules/express
├── utils-merge@1.0.0
├── merge-descriptors@0.0.2
├── fresh@0.2.4
├── cookie@0.1.2
├── escape-html@1.0.1
├── range-parser@1.0.2
├── cookie-signature@1.0.5
├── finalhandler@0.3.2
├── vary@1.0.0
├── media-typer@0.3.0
├── parseurl@1.3.0
├── methods@1.1.0
├── serve-static@1.7.1
├── content-disposition@0.5.0
├── path-to-regexp@0.1.3
├── depd@1.0.0
├── qs@2.3.3
├── etag@1.5.1 (crc@3.2.1)
├── on-finished@2.1.1 (ee-first@1.1.0)
├── debug@2.1.0 (ms@0.6.2)
├── send@0.10.1 (destroy@1.0.3, ms@0.6.2, mime@1.2.11)
├── accepts@1.1.4 (negotiator@0.4.9, mime-types@2.0.4)
├── type-is@1.5.4 (mime-types@2.0.4)
└── proxy-addr@1.0.4 (forwarded@0.1.0, ipaddr.js@0.1.5)

Lots of people think the problem is SSL certificates not being recognized properly, thus and recommend the following which is WRONG and should NOT be used as they result in unsecure connection used when fetching:

before npm install express run npm config set registry http://registry.npmjs.org/ OR npm config set strict-ssl false