Failing Node.js v17 NPM installations on ppc64le

[achrinza]

It was found in a few PRs that NPM installations on Node.js v17, ppc64le Travis CI pipelines were consistently failing with the same error. Switching between Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04, nor did re-running the build at a later time resolve the issue.

Problematic PRs:

• ci: enable Node.js v17 testing loopback-datasource-juggler#1906 (Bionic build, Xenial build)
• Pin NPM; Update Node.js loopback-connector-grpc#17 (Bionic build)
• ci: update envirnoment loopback-connector#192 (Bionic build)
• ci: update environment strong-soap#347 (Xenial build)

Error snippet

$ NODEJS_VERSION=$(node --version)
  if [ 'v10' = ${NODEJS_VERSION%%.*} ]
  then
    npm install --global npm@7
  else
    npm install --global npm@8
  fi
  
npm ERR! code ENETUNREACH
npm ERR! syscall connect
npm ERR! errno ENETUNREACH
npm ERR! request to https://registry.npmjs.org/npm failed, reason: connect ENETUNREACH 2606:4700::6810:1323:443
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/travis/.npm/_logs/2021-11-21T04_50_26_698Z-debug.log
The command "NODEJS_VERSION=$(node --version)
  if [ 'v10' = ${NODEJS_VERSION%%.*} ]
  then
    npm install --global npm@7
  else
    npm install --global npm@8
  fi
  " failed and exited with 1 during .
Your build has been stopped.

[achrinza]

After further testing, it was confirmed that it affects "Travis CI + Node.js v17 + ppc64le", regardless of which NPM version is used.

See: https://app.travis-ci.com/github/achrinza/nodejs-ci-test/builds/243299904

[achrinza]

loopbackio/loopback-next#8302 (comment) brought up that Node.js v17 changed the OpenSSL provider. Something to test out.