title: Could not get uid/gid when building Node/Docker
body: <p>My Dockerfile is using alpine and globally installing react-scripts.  When it tries to install it, it fails with "could not get uid/gid" error.  I added the "---unsafe-perm" option to the npm install -g command. The docker container is successfully created, but the permissions in the container are messaged up for the installed files.  I see the username and group set to 1000 for all of them.  I tried adding the following command to the Dockerfile right before the install step but that didn't help.</p>
  
  <pre><code>RUN npm -g config set user root
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Build error</p>
  
  <pre><code>Error: could not get uid/gid
  [ 'nobody', 0 ]
  
      at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number/uid-number.js:37:16
      at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:296:5)
      at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:182:13)
      at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:961:16)
      at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:250:5)
  TypeError: Cannot read property 'get' of undefined
      at errorHandler (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/error-handler.js:205:18)
      at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js:76:20
      at cb (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/npm.js:228:22)
      at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/npm.js:266:24
      at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:83:7
      at Array.forEach (&lt;anonymous&gt;)
      at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:82:13
      at f (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/once/once.js:25:25)
      at afterExtras (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:173:20)
      at Conf.&lt;anonymous&gt; (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/config/core.js:231:22)
  /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/error-handler.js:205
    if (npm.config.get('json')) {
                   ^
  
  TypeError: Cannot read property 'get' of undefined
      at process.errorHandler (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/error-handler.js:205:18)
      at process.emit (events.js:182:13)
      at process._fatalException (internal/bootstrap/node.js:472:27)
  ERROR: Service 'sample-app' failed to build: The command '/bin/sh -c npm install react-scripts@1.1.1 -g' returned a non-zero code: 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Dockerfile</p>
  
  <pre><code>/usr/src/app # cat Dockerfile
  # build environment
  FROM node:10-alpine as builder
  RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/app
  WORKDIR /usr/src/app
  ENV PATH /usr/src/app/node_modules/.bin:$PATH
  COPY package.json /usr/src/app/package.json
  RUN npm install
  RUN npm install react-scripts@1.1.1 -g 
  COPY . /usr/src/app
  RUN npm run build
  
  # production environment
  FROM nginx:1.13.9-alpine
  COPY --from=builder /usr/src/app/build /usr/share/nginx/html
  EXPOSE 80
  CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]
  </code></pre>