Regarding "Contributing Feedback and More"

[aabsharma]

Summary

Customer Request

We usually need to apply for mirroring package repository for use, or sometimes we need to download the whole package repository offline and put into target deployment servers.

But when I test and prepare TPA deployment steps, I can only find below three ways for package access.

1. [[Setup](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/) [`[EDB_SUBSCRIPTION_TOKEN](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/)`](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/) [[and configure with](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/) [`[--edb-repositories](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/)`](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/edb_repositories/) : \
   This method assumes all servers (the TPA node and deployment target servers) are able to access the external network to get packages from official repositories directly
2. [[Execute](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/) [`[tpaexec download-packages](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/)`](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/) [[and configure with](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/) [`[--enable-local-repo](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/)`](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/) :\
   This method assumes either the TPA node can access the external official repositories, or one needs to [[put downloaded packages in the specified directory structure](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/#creating-a-local-repository-manually)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/local-repo/#creating-a-local-repository-manually) (a little cumbersome approach).\
   And all packages are copied to all deployment target servers during the `tpaexec deploy` step.
3. Totally disable all repositories and only use local repo by configuring [[--use-local-repo-only](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/tpaexec-configure/#local-repository-support)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/tpaexec-configure/#local-repository-support)\
   This approach is not quite suitable because one needs to download all necessary packages from OS repos (`BaseOS`, `AppStream`, etc) which match deployed target OS version exactly. This approach is very cumbersome. 😅

All these cases don't work well with [[the local package mirror setup mentioned in the doc page on preparing local repository in air-gapped environments](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/repos/working_with_repos/building_local_mirrors/)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/repos/working_with_repos/building_local_mirrors/).

Although I try to setup [[an extra repository and bypass above EPAS/PGSQL repository](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/yum_repositories/)](https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/tpa/latest/reference/yum_repositories/), but it seems not totally fit with all above options.

So I think the current TPA lacks of local repo mirror support.

From EDB side, we shared below information.

Best way to move forward with this is to simply configure repositories on the host any way you prefer, and pointing it to your mirror(s). Here we need to set `edb_repositories: []` to prevent TPA from attempting to configure repositories, and TPA will then pull the required packages from the mirror(s).

As per discussion with eng team in engineering channel, I am creating this request to add this information in the document.

Where would you like to see this added?

https://github.com/EnterpriseDB/docs/blob/main/advocacy_docs/community/contributing/index.mdx

Rationale

No response