Relative URL Does Not Work If There Is No Access to NPM Registry

[shplishka]

When I use GITLAB_RELATIVE_URL_ROOT It reinstalls all the Node modules (Link to Code).

However, when running this in an airgapped environment without access to the NPM registry, it gets stuck because it cannot find the modules to install.

Steps to Reproduce: Set up an airgapped environment without NPM registry access. Use the GITLAB_RELATIVE_URL_ROOT at the specified location in the code.

Expected Behavior The Node modules should not attempt to reinstall, or there should be an alternative method to handle this in an airgapped environment.

Actual Behavior: The process gets stuck and cannot find the modules to install.

Is there a workaround or an alternative approach to handle this situation in an airgapped environment?

link to another issue where i found it - https://github.com/sameersbn/docker-gitlab/issues/2964#issuecomment-2247506803

[kkimurak]

One of the major drawbacks would be the large size of the distribution image. So I actually built 2 images - keeping /home/git/gitlab/node_modules or its caches in /home/git/.cache/yarn/* . Here are image sizes comparation. Relative URL works on both tweaked image on VM without internet connection.

node_modules	yarn cache	image size	note
delete	delete	3.68GB	sameersbn/gitlab:17.2.0
keep	delete	5.04GB
delete	keep	5.67GB

[kkimurak]

Well, I noticed that relative url seems to work even if I deleted whole process to recompiling assets (running 17.9.2). Perhaps the recompile process itself is no longer necessary. If so, it may even be possible to reduce the image size. I'll do some more research.

[kkimurak]

@shplishka Sorry, I'm almost a year late. I identified the upstream commits that justified this and the versions where the corresponding changes were made, so I created a pull request #3122 to avoid recompiling assets even in environments where relative URLs are used. We can run sameersbn/gitlab with relative url in airgapped environment once the PR is merged.