Timeouts when attempting to use vendir with a registry with a significant amount of tags

[alexbarbato]

What steps did you take: When attempting to use a vendir sync from a repository with a significant number of files there will be timeouts with no way to handle them. With imgpkg natively you can use --registry-response-header-timeout, but that API isn't exposed here in vendir.

What happened: The sync will timeout.

What did you expect: That as a user I could extend the timeout as long as I need to be able to make it so the request won't time out.

Environment:

• vendir version (execute vendir --version): 0.35.0
• OS (e.g. from /etc/os-release): MacOS (ARM)

Example config

apiVersion: vendir.k14s.io/v1alpha1
kind: Config
minimumRequiredVersion: 0.12.0
directories:
  # Use this if you're downloading manifests directly from a location.
  - path: bundle/packages.temp
    contents:
      - path: .
        imgpkgBundle:
          image: REPO.COM/IMAGE-REPO
          tagSelection:
            semver:
              constraints: ">1.1.0 <1.7.1"
        newRootPath: packages
  - path: bundle/.imgpkg
    contents:
      - path: .
        imgpkgBundle: *tap
        newRootPath: .imgpkg

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[alexbarbato]

https://github.com/carvel-dev/vendir/blob/217399ee16800afea4dfffb8c6d3b36959e37c3c/pkg/vendir/fetch/image/imgpkg.go#L161C3-L161C24

Here's the line where the naughtiness happens

[alexbarbato]

I started poking at this a bit today and noticed that when I change the reference above to 120 seconds from 30 seconds and then recompile vendir things do work for a vendir sync

But I couldn't come to a confident place of where the issue should be rectified:

1. Maybe the offending repository needs to clear out the massive amount of tags they are building?
   • This is somewhat problematic as we do want to encourage folks to release frequently and often. I see the internal builds as well as release candidates.
2. Maybe we just want to up the timeout limit and cut retries in vendir?
   • This is very brute force, not ideal feeling - but would solve the issue.
3. Maybe we want to expose a timeout to the tag selection block in a Config file because this is a unique issue tied to tags?
   • This is debatably the most "right" approach if this is an issue that should be solved within vendir. Masking the underlying imgpkg configuration is not a foreign practice as you can skip TLS verification right now.

[praveenrewar]

This is debatably the most "right" approach if this is an issue that should be solved within vendir. Masking the underlying imgpkg configuration is not a foreign practice as you can skip TLS verification right now.

+1, I think this is the most reasonable approach. cc @kumaritanushree @joaopapereira