Npm install doesn't succeed in Gitlab Continuous Integration

Question

I'm trying to install dependencies for a project that I've hosted on Gitlab, and my Runner never completes the install. It seems to try to get the dependencies, but always times out. Here is my .gitlab-ci.yml file:

image: node:4.6.0

test_job:
  script:
    - hostname
    - npm config list
    - npm install
    - echo "After install"
only:
- master

The output looks like this:

npm info attempt registry request try #3 at 3:06:54 PM
npm http request GET https://registry.npmjs.org/babel-register
npm info attempt registry request try #3 at 3:06:54 PM
npm http request GET https://registry.npmjs.org/babel-preset-stage-2
npm info retry will retry, error on last attempt: Error: connect ETIMEDOUT 151.101.12.162:443
npm info retry will retry, error on last attempt: Error: connect ETIMEDOUT 151.101.12.162:443

And finally, after 15 minutes of attempting to retrieve packages:

npm ERR! Linux 4.4.19-rancher
npm ERR! argv "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! node v4.6.0
npm ERR! npm  v2.15.9
npm ERR! code ETIMEDOUT
npm ERR! errno ETIMEDOUT
npm ERR! syscall connect

npm ERR! network connect ETIMEDOUT 151.101.12.162:443
npm ERR! network This is most likely not a problem with npm itself
npm ERR! network and is related to network connectivity.
npm ERR! network In most cases you are behind a proxy or have bad network settings.
npm ERR! network 
npm ERR! network If you are behind a proxy, please make sure that the
npm ERR! network 'proxy' config is set properly.  See: 'npm help config'

I don't think this is a proxy issue since this Runner is running in a Docker container hosted by Gitlab, but aside from that, I don't know what the issue is. Why would npm install fail like this so consistently?

Answer 1

My company had a specific mirror that it wanted us to use for npm packages. When I set that, everything worked fine.