When installing a package using the node:8-alpine docker image on AWS using an M5 instance type NPM fails with "Error: could not get uid/gid"

[nathanburrell]

I'm opening this issue because:

• [ x] npm is crashing.
• [x ] npm is producing incorrect or undesirable behavior.

What's going wrong?

node 8 alpine image does not appear to work on AWS m5 instances.

Error: could not get uid/gid
[ 'nobody', 0 ]
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number/uid-number.js:37:16
at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:282:5)
at emitTwo (events.js:126:13)
at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:214:7)
at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:925:16)
at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:209:5)
TypeError: Cannot read property 'get' of undefined
at errorHandler (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/error-handler.js:205:18)
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js:83:20
at cb (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/npm.js:224:22)
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/npm.js:262:24
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:81:7
at Array.forEach ()
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:80:13
at f (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/once/once.js:25:25)
at afterExtras (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:178:20)
at Conf. (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:236:22)
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number/uid-number.js:39:14
at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:282:5)
at emitTwo (events.js:126:13)
at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:214:7)
at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:925:16)
at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:209:5)
/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/error-handler.js:205
if (npm.config.get('json')) {
^
TypeError: Cannot read property 'get' of undefined
at process.errorHandler (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/error-handler.js:205:18)
at emitOne (events.js:116:13)
at process.emit (events.js:211:7)
at process._fatalException (bootstrap_node.js:378:26)

How can the CLI team reproduce the problem?

On EC2 with a new m5 instance type with ubuntu 16.04 and docker 1.13.1 the below command fails with the error described above.

docker container run -it node:8-alpine /bin/sh -c "npm install -g nsp"

On EC2 with a new m5 instance type with ubuntu 16.04 and docker 1.13.1 the below command passes.

docker container run -it node:8 /bin/sh -c "npm install -g nsp"

On EC2 with an old m4 instance type with ubuntu 16.04 and docker 1.13.1 the below command passes.

docker container run -it node:8-alpine /bin/sh -c "npm install -g nsp"

On EC2 with an old m4 instance type with ubuntu 16.04 and docker 1.13.1 the below command passes.

docker container run -it node:8 /bin/sh -c "npm install -g nsp"

This leads me to believe that node on alpine (and maybe due to libmusl) is having a compatiblity issue with amazons new nitro virtualization stack.

http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-11-29/aws-ec2-virtualization-2017.html
https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/m5/

This was (we have since changed our instance types back to m4) affecting customers of the product I work on Bitucket Pipelines.

https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues/16334/pipelines-failing-with-could-not-get-uid

[ccheshire]

I ran into the same issue after we upgraded to an m5 instance,
found a solution at npm/uid-number#3 (comment)

so I added
RUN npm config set unsafe-perm true to my Dockerfile before the npm install and everything works again