InstantWP Alpine Linux - repository tag for world dependency 'apk-tools@edge' does not exist

Question

I am using InstantWP which installs a virtual server running Alpine Linux. InstantWP is for running a local version of Wordpress. It has MariaDB 10.1 installed, which isn't the latest version of mariadb.

So I try sudo apk add mariadb. This returns an error:

WARNING: This apk-tools is OLD! Some packages might not function properly.
WARNING: The repository tag for world dependency 'apk-tools@edge' does not exist
ERROR: Not committing changes due to missing repository tags. Use --force to override.

I tried doing sudo apk update and inspecting apk/repositories is showing:

#/media/cdrom/apks
http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.6/main
#http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.5/community
#http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main
http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community
#http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing

Nothing seems to fix this. What is going on?

The main issue is when I import my sql file from MySQL 8.0 via phpmyadmin, it returns an error: #1273 - Unknown collation: 'utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci' and I read running the latest version of mariadb might be the solution.

Answer 1

As the warning suggests, it seems apk expects that the @edge repository tag is present, but it indeed missing from your /etc/apk/repositories file.

For adding the edge tag and repository, add the following line to your repositories file:

@edge http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/main

This enables the edge repository, and tags it with the @edge tag.
After doing this, run apk update and try repeating MariaDB installation.

For more details on Alpine repository tagging and pinning, refer to:
Alpine Wiki - Packages and Repositories - Repository pinning.