Offline Development

Set up a registry for air-gapped or disconnected environments.

Use Case

You need to develop MoonBit applications in an environment without internet access, such as:

  • Secure facilities with network restrictions
  • Remote locations with limited connectivity
  • Compliance requirements that prohibit external network access

Solution

Pre-populate a registry on a connected machine, then transfer it to the air-gapped environment.

Step 1: Prepare the Registry (Connected Machine) 

# Create and initialize the registry
moonbit-registry init ./offline-registry
cd offline-registry

# Mirror all packages you'll need
# Option A: Mirror everything
moonbit-registry mirror --full

# Option B: Mirror specific packages and their dependencies
moonbit-registry mirror "moonbitlang/*" "company/internal-*"

# Verify the packages were downloaded
ls -la data/packages/

Step 2: Transfer to Air-Gapped Environment

Transfer the entire offline-registry directory to your air-gapped environment using your approved method (USB drive, secure file transfer, etc.).

The directory contains:

  • registry.toml - Configuration
  • data/index/ - Package metadata (git repository)
  • data/packages/ - Actual package files (.zip)

Step 3: Serve the Registry (Air-Gapped Machine) 

cd /path/to/offline-registry

# Start the server
moonbit-registry serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

Consider running the server as a system service for automatic startup.

Step 4: Configure Developer Machines

On each developer machine in the air-gapped environment:

# Add to shell profile (.bashrc, .zshrc, etc.)
export MOONCAKES_REGISTRY=http://registry-server:8080

Replace registry-server with the hostname or IP of the machine running the registry.

Systemd Service (Linux)

To run the registry as a system service:

# /etc/systemd/system/moonbit-registry.service
[Unit]
Description=MoonBit Registry Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=registry
WorkingDirectory=/opt/moonbit-registry
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/moonbit-registry serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080
Restart=always
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start:

sudo systemctl enable moonbit-registry
sudo systemctl start moonbit-registry

Updating the Offline Registry

When you need to add new packages:

  1. On the connected machine, mirror the new packages
  2. Transfer the updated data/ directory
  3. Restart the registry server (or it will pick up changes automatically)
# On connected machine
moonbit-registry mirror "new/package"

# Transfer data/packages/new/ and data/index/ updates