Installing Tensorflow GPU/CUDA dependencies on a machine with no internet access - tensorflow

Question

I have 2 machines -
dccten1a with no internet access where I need to install Tensorflow with GPU support
dccten1b with internet access so that I can download packages and transfer to dccten1a
In the final step of installing Tensorflow, when running the bazel build command to produce a whl file, I get an error which says that it can't find a file in a folder it is looking in, and also cannot download, obviously, as 1a doesn't have internet access.
bazel build --config=opt --config=cuda /home/tensorflow/Documents/tf_dependencies/tensorflow-master/tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package --cxxopt="-D_GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI=0"
ERROR: error loading package '': Encountered error while reading extension file 'closure/defs.bzl': no such package '#io_bazel_rules_closure//closure': Error downloading [http://bazel-mirror.storage.googleapis.com/github.com/bazelbuild/rules_closure/archive/5ca1dab6df9ad02050f7ba4e816407f88690cf7d.tar.gz, https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_closure/archive/5ca1dab6df9ad02050f7ba4e816407f88690cf7d.tar.gz] to /home/xyzuser/.cache/bazel/_bazel_xyzuser/cb1e63cb5e61cab49a9fd2f5ba92d003/external/io_bazel_rules_closure/5ca1dab6df9ad02050f7ba4e816407f88690cf7d.tar.gz: All mirrors are down: [Unknown host: github.com, Unknown host: mirror.bazel.build]
I checked in the system, and there is no such directory as shown in the error message (i.e., /home/xyzuser/.cache/bazel/_bazel_xyzuser/cb1e63cb5e61cab49a9fd2f5ba92d003/external/io_bazel_rules_closure/). So, I created it, searched and found the requisite (?) file online, downloaded the file in the machine with internet, transferred it to the target machine, moved the file to the just created directory, and tried running the command again:
(tensorflow#dccten1a):
mkdir -p /home/tensorflow/.cache/bazel/_bazel_tensorflow/cb1e63cb5e61cab49a9fd2f5ba92d003/external/io_bazel_rules_closure
(tensorflow#dccten1b):
http://bazel-mirror.storage.googleapis.com/github.com/bazelbuild/rules_closure/archive/5ca1dab6df9ad02050f7ba4e816407f88690cf7d.tar.gz
sudo scp -r /home/tensorflow/Downloads/5ca1dab6df9ad02050f7ba4e816407f88690cf7d.tar.gz tensorflow#160.88.114.17:/home/tensorflow/Documents/tf_dependencies
(tensorflow#dccten1a):
mv /home/tensorflow/Documents/tf_dependencies/5ca1dab6df9ad02050f7ba4e816407f88690cf7d.tar.gz /home/tensorflow/.cache/bazel/_bazel_tensorflow/cb1e63cb5e61cab49a9fd2f5ba92d003/external/io_bazel_rules_closure
Then I run the bazel build command again, but the same error persists.

Answer 1

Use --experimental_repository_cache to download the dependencies on the machine with internet access, transfer the cache to the machine without internet access, and use --experimental_repository_cache to refer to the same cache.
e.g.
1) On the machine with internet access, run
tensorflow#dccten1b $ bazel build --experimental_repository_cache=/path/to/some/folder --config=opt --config=cuda /home/tensorflow/Documents/tf_dependencies/tensorflow-master/tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package --cxxopt="-D_GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI=0""
2) Copy the cache at /path/to/some/folder to the machine without internet access using a SD card or flash drive.
3) On the machine without internet access, run the same command again and setting the flag to the cache's location.
tensorflow#dccten1a $ bazel build --experimental_repository_cache=/path/to/some/folder --config=opt --config=cuda /home/tensorflow/Documents/tf_dependencies/tensorflow-master/tensorflow/tools/pip_package:build_pip_package --cxxopt="-D_GLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI=0""