Creating a Bazel distdir for third-party dependencies - bazel

Question

I am using Bazel on a codebase that uses SpringBoot and JUnit in an airgapped environment. Here are the commands I need to run in order to fetch all the third-party dependencies:
bazel fetch '#bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:*'
bazel fetch '#rules_java//java:*'
bazel fetch '#rules_cc//cc:*'
bazel fetch #local_config_platform//...
bazel fetch #local_config_sh//...
bazel fetch #maven//...
bazel fetch #org_opentest4j_opentest4j//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_junit_jupiter_junit_jupiter_params//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_junit_jupiter_junit_jupiter_engine//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_junit_platform_junit_platform_console//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_junit_platform_junit_platform_engine//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_junit_platform_junit_platform_commons//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_junit_platform_junit_platform_suite_api//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_junit_platform_junit_platform_launcher//jar:jar
bazel fetch #org_apiguardian_apiguardian_api//jar:jar
bazel fetch #remote_coverage_tools//:coverage_report_generator
bazel fetch #remotejdk11_linux//:jdk
How do I make these dependencies available in an airgapped environment (where I cannot download things from the internet)? Does Bazel have a command that creates a download cache for third-party dependencies similar to https://docs.bazel.build/versions/master/guide.html#running-bazel-in-an-airgapped-environment? Said another way, can Bazel populate a directory that can be shared with other machines and used via --distdir there? Are there other ways to share Bazel's download cache?

Answer 1

Maybe bazel sync can help here. Via this command, you can create a resolved file (e.g. resolved.bzl)
bazel sync --experimental_repository_resolved_file=resolved.bzl
This file is a .json file. With content similar to this:
"repositories": [
{
"rule_class": "#bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl%http_archive",
"attributes": {
"url": "",
"urls": [
"https://github.com/embree/embree/archive/v2.16.5.zip"
],
"sha256": "9c4c0c385a7725946648578c1b58e887caa8b4a675a9356e76b9501d9e2e9e42",
"netrc": "",
"auth_patterns": {},
"canonical_id": "",
"strip_prefix": "embree-2.16.5",
"type": "",
"patches": [],
"patch_tool": "",
"patch_args": [
"-p0"
],
"patch_cmds": [],
"patch_cmds_win": [],
"build_file": "//ThirdParty:embree.BUILD",
"build_file_content": "",
"workspace_file_content": "",
"name": "embree"
},
"output_tree_hash": "b96d3a8db2ddd4bbc7ccde297a1d12e8be48c768bddde1ade53a4987861a1fe7"
}
]
You need now a little helper tool (python script - whatever) that visits each url/urls in the determined repositories and adds it to your --distdir folder.