Host Eclipse P2 as Generic Packages

Release notes

Allow Eclipse P2 repositories to be hosted as Gitlab Generic Packages.

Problem to solve

Generic packages are ideal for hosting Eclipse P2 repositories, as these are HTTP based repositories only. Unfortunately installation agents only allow username and password HTTP authentication for access.

This means that the package registry cannot be used by P2 agents.

Intended users

Delaney (Development Team Lead) - defines development of Eclipse application.
Sasha (Software Developer) - develops Eclipse application, uses results.
Devon (DevOps Engineer) - develops Tycho builds.
Rachel (Release Manager) - sends releases of Eclipse application.
Alex (Security Operations Engineer) - screens repositories for malicious content.
Simone (Software Engineer in Test) - creates Eclipse plugin tests.

User experience goal

The user should use the Generic Packages API off GitLab to install Eclipse P2 installable units. This includes installing Eclipse RCP and RAP applications (fat clients), features (assemblies with related functionality to add to an Eclipse application) and plugins. This allows

Direct try-out of build results.
Reuse of intermediate products.
Testing and screening of intermediate products.

Proposal

Allow to use a user-name-based access token on the repository. Publish feature description.

Further details

Eclipse has a large eco-system that is poorly service for the full lifecycle of CI/CD. This would allow distinction for Gitlab with a low investments.

Permissions and Security

No additional permissions are required.

Documentation

Availability & Testing

The change minimally affects the permission model. The denial of access and permission definition have to be unit tested, and the combination has to be integration test.

Unit test changes
Integration test changes

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

Repositories should start showing Eclipse P2 content, publications and social media should start showing templates.