supporting installing node into an alpine based container

I use alpine linux for my container.

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container:
      image: php:7.3-fpm-alpine

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: use Node
      uses: actions/setup-node@v1
      with:
        node-version: 12.x

    - name: npm install
      run: npm install

actions/setup-node succeeds, but npm install fails.

Run npm install
  npm install
  shell: sh -e {0}
env: can't execute 'node': No such file or directory
##[error]Process completed with exit code 127.

Is there a way to work with alpine linux?

[dmitry-shibanov]

Hello @fagai. I’ve tried to investigate the issue deeper and it looks like the action won’t be able to configure nodejs from source code for alpine images, because it requires extra tools and libs (for example python) which could not persist on the docker image.

I think the most suitable solution for this will be installing unofficial builds. We have issue with adding mirrors. But you still can have problems with node because alpine does not contain all necessary libs, that is why possibly you’ll need to execute apk add --no-cache libstdc++.

For now I’m closing the issue. If you have any concerns or questions feel free to ping us.

[dmitry-shibanov]

Hello @fagai. Actually setup-node sets up a volume to the toolcache directory where nodejs versions persist. I think node installed to docker image was not compatible with used alpine image.

As @adabru mentioned for alpine images unofficial-builds.nodejs.org builds are used or nodejs is built from source code. For now I think the error is expected because setup-node installs nodejs binaries from https://nodejs.org/dist.