Build fails when using `--no-bin-links`

[JamesXNelson]

Hi there.

We have a private enterprise repo where we have to use --no-bin-links due to how our CI caching layer works (bin links can lead to hanging symlinks that blow up on us).

When running npm i, everything is happy. Adding --no-bin-links, and we get traces like so:

6299 verbose reify failed optional dependency /dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/msgpackr-extract
6300 silly reify mark deleted [
6300 silly reify   '/dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/msgpackr-extract',
6300 silly reify   '/dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/.bin/download-msgpackr-prebuilds'
6300 silly reify ]
6301 verbose reify failed optional dependency /dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/node-gyp-build-optional-packages
6302 silly reify mark deleted [
6302 silly reify   '/dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/node-gyp-build-optional-packages',
6302 silly reify   '/dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/.bin/node-gyp-build-optional-packages',
6302 silly reify   '/dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/.bin/node-gyp-build-optional-packages-optional',
6302 silly reify   '/dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/.bin/node-gyp-build-optional-packages-test'
6302 silly reify ]
6303 verbose reify failed optional dependency /dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/node-gyp-build-optional-packages/node_modules/detect-libc
6304 silly reify mark deleted [
6304 silly reify   '/dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/node-gyp-build-optional-packages/node_modules/detect-libc'
6304 silly reify ]
6305 timing build:run:install:node_modules/msgpackr-extract Completed in 36ms
6306 info run lmdb@2.8.5 install { code: 127, signal: null }
6307 timing reify:rollback:createSparse Completed in 1144ms
6308 timing reify:rollback:retireShallow Completed in 0ms
6309 timing command:i Completed in 28387ms
6310 verbose stack Error: command failed
6310 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/james/.nvm/versions/node/v20.13.1/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/promise-spawn/lib/index.js:53:27)
6310 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:519:28)
6310 verbose stack     at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1105:16)
6310 verbose stack     at Socket.<anonymous> (node:internal/child_process:457:11)
6310 verbose stack     at Socket.emit (node:events:519:28)
6310 verbose stack     at Pipe.<anonymous> (node:net:338:12)
6311 verbose pkgid lmdb@2.8.5
6312 verbose cwd /dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui
6313 verbose Linux 6.8.0-40-generic
6314 verbose node v20.13.1
6315 verbose npm  v10.5.2
6316 error code 127
6317 error path /dh/ws2/iris/web/client-ui/node_modules/lmdb
6318 error command failed
6319 error command sh -c node-gyp-build-optional-packages
6320 error sh: 1: node-gyp-build-optional-packages: not found

sorry if there's some additional debugging info that should be provided; I do general devops, and am helping our web team fix this build error ("it works on my machine, but dies in CI [because we enforce --no-bin-links in CI]").

[JamesXNelson]

fwiw, adding --ignore-scripts has enabled us to move past this, but I really dislike arbitrarily disabling things I don't really understand in order to workaround a problem.

[vweevers]

In the case of node-gyp-build (or the node-gyp-build-optional-packages fork that lmdb employs) it is safe to use --ignore-scripts if a prebuilt binary is available for the platform that you're running on (assuming you have no other reason to compile it yourself). The script checks if a compatible prebuild exists, and if not, falls back to compiling the addon (lmdb).

[JamesXNelson]

ok. I was trying to avoid --ignore-scripts in case something else needed it, but our build seems to be fine w/ this disabled.

I think perhaps some additional testing around --no-bin-links so that is doesn't try to sh node-gyp-build when it's not on the PATH may help others in the future.

[vweevers]

IMO use of --no-bin-links is at your own risk, because it's an essential feature for npm scripts. There is no alternative that has the same level of convenience.