ERROR: unable to select packages

ERROR: unable to select packages: aws-cli (no such package):required by: world[aws-cli]

My gitlab pipeline recently failed with the error “aws-cli package not found.” I was installing the aws-cli package into my pipeline using Docker version 26, but I was unable to install it because of the Alpine package. I will walk you through how I fixed this problem in my giltab pipeline in this post, but keep in mind that this is just a short-term workaround.

Installing aws-cli via apk directly may fail in Docker images built on Alpine Linux 3.20, like docker:26, because the package is not present in the default repository. Here is a short fix to deal with this problem. As per offical release not , The aws-cli has been temporarily disabled until upstream resolves incompatibilities with Python 3.12. See the release notes for it here.

Error I got :

$ apk add aws-cli
ERROR: unable to select packages:
  aws-cli (no such package):
    required by: world[aws-cli]

Here is my gitlab-ci.yml file.

aws_auth:
  stage: aws_auth
  image: docker:25
  services:
    - name: docker:25-dind
      command: ["--registry-mirror=https://registry-mirror.gcr.io"]
  script:
    - apk update && apk upgrade
    - apk add aws-cli
    - apk add curl jq
    - authenticate_os_dev_aws
    - aws s3 cp s3://$SOURCE_S3_BUCKET/FILE_PATH/$FILE_NAME $PWD/$FILE_NAME
    - ls -l DC
    - pull_and_run_docker_image
    - authenticate_os_dev_aws
    - aws s3 cp $CI_PROJECT_DIR/my-data/ s3://$DESTINATION_S3_BUCKET/$VERSION_ID --recursive
  when: on_success
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - my-data

This shows that the Alpine V3.20 repository is being accessed by it. that its repository’s aws-cli package was missing.. which was missing aws-cli package from it’s repository.

Solution :

In order to fix this problem, I updated the docker:26 repository with Alpine 3.9. Append the Alpine 3.19 repository URLs to the package repositories list. Once more, let me emphasize that this is a temporary solution that will enable you to solve the problem effectively.

   - echo 'http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.19/main' >> /etc/apk/repositories
   - echo 'http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.19/community' >> /etc/apk/repositories

Here is the updated gitlab-ci.yml file.

aws_auth:
  stage: aws_auth
  image: docker:25
  services:
    - name: docker:25-dind
      command: ["--registry-mirror=https://registry-mirror.gcr.io"]
  script:
    - echo 'http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.19/main' >> /etc/apk/repositories
    - echo 'http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.19/community' >> /etc/apk/repositories  
    - apk update && apk upgrade
    - apk add aws-cli
    - apk add curl jq
    - authenticate_os_dev_aws
    - aws s3 cp s3://$SOURCE_S3_BUCKET/FILE_PATH/$FILE_NAME $PWD/$FILE_NAME
    - ls -l DC
    - pull_and_run_docker_image
    - authenticate_os_dev_aws
    - aws s3 cp $CI_PROJECT_DIR/my-data/ s3://$DESTINATION_S3_BUCKET/$VERSION_ID --recursive
  when: on_success
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - my-data

By temporarily adding Alpine 3.19 repositories and installing aws-cli, along with other necessary packages, You can resolve the ‘Unable to Select Packages: aws-cli’ error in Docker:26 images. This solution ensures seamless integration of AWS CLI functionality into Alpine 3.20-based Docker environments.

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