DEV Community: Project-42

Swingbench in a Container: The Podman Way

Project-42 — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 11:21:43 +0000

I wanted to start using podman closely to some tools I need to use for Oracle Databases, so I decided to start with Swingbench.

1. Creating Container file
2. Building the image locally
3. Hosting multiple architecture packages in github
4. Testing the images
5. Conclusion

1. Creating Container file

I won't say much about what Swingbench does, but as described by its creator "Swingbench is a free load generator (and benchmarks) designed to stress test an Oracle database (12c, 18c, 19c, 21c, 23c)" (good old times when we called it 23c :P)

It can be downloaded here

Since the Dockerfile was created already (but long time ago ) I did'nt have to do much more than modify the current URL for the tool and use a more updated openjdk release:

Here is the Container file:

# Containerfile for swingbench
# See www.dominicgiles.com/swingbench.html for further details
# Based on Dockerfile:
# https://github.com/domgiles/SwingbenchDocker/blob/master/Dockerfile
# Updated to use 27-ea-slim

FROM docker.io/openjdk:27-ea-slim
# Dockerfile for swingbench
# See www.dominicgiles.com/swingbench.html for further details

RUN apt-get update \
&& apt-get install -y curl zip \
&& mkdir app \
&& curl "https://downloads.dominicgiles.com/swingbenchlatest.zip" -o app/swingbench.zip

WORKDIR /app
RUN unzip swingbench.zip

ENV PATH "$PATH:/app/swingbench/bin"

WORKDIR /app/swingbench/bin

2. Building the image locally

Once I have the Container file I can easily build the image:

[|=| server in ~/pods ]$ git clone https://github.com/Project-42/SwingbenchContainer.git
Cloning into 'SwingbenchContainer'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 12, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (12/12), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (10/10), done.
remote: Total 12 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (12/12), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2/2), done.

[|=| server in ~/pods ]$ cd SwingbenchContainer/

[|=| server in ~/pods/SwingbenchContainer ]$ ls -lrth
total 8.0K
-rw-r--r--. 1 solifugo solifugo 254 Mar 30 11:14 README.md
-rw-r--r--. 1 solifugo solifugo 605 Mar 30 11:14 Containerfile

[|=| server in ~/pods/SwingbenchContainer ]$ podman build --progress=plain -t swingbench:v1 .
STEP 1/6: FROM docker.io/openjdk:27-ea-slim
Trying to pull docker.io/library/openjdk:27-ea-slim...
[...]
STEP 6/6: WORKDIR /app/swingbench/bin
COMMIT swingbench:v1
--> 67b38a00415f
Successfully tagged localhost/swingbench:v1
67b38a00415f5ec84bec8587c22b33d9896dfae7ce075cc2be36877684727abd

[|=| server in ~/pods/SwingbenchContainer ]$

3. Hosting multiple architecture packages in github

I wanted to go a step further and host the images in my github account for both AMD64 and ARM64 (for my rasperry pi testing)

Login into the Repo using a token created for it (Go to GitHub Settings > Developer Settings > Personal Access Tokens (classic) and create a token with write:packages and delete:packages scopes.)

echo "*******" | podman login ghcr.io -u Project-42 --password-stdin

Build and push the individual images (using unique tags):

# Build for amd64
podman build --platform linux/amd64 -t ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:amd64 .
podman push ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:amd64

# Build for arm64
podman build --platform linux/arm64 -t ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:arm64 .
podman push ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:arm64

Create the "Global" Manifest:

# Create an empty list
podman manifest create ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest

# Add both specific versions to that list
podman manifest add ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest docker://ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:amd64
podman manifest add ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest docker://ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:arm64

# Push the manifest to GitHub
podman manifest push ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest

4. Testing the images

Now, I should be able to do testing from the server or raspi systems calling the latest tag:

[|=| server in ~ ]$ podman run --name swingbench --rm -i -t ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest  \
oewizard -cl -create -cs rac1-scan:1521/PDB191 \
-u soe -p soe -dba "sys as sysdba" \
-dbap ***** -ts ts_swingbench
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob 421bb5d6c5ea skipped: already exists
[...]
Copying blob 7284c4b5e434 skipped: already exists
Copying config 67b38a0041 done   |
Writing manifest to image destination
SwingBench Wizard
Author  :   Dominic Giles
Version :   2.8.0.1630

Running in Lights Out Mode using config file : ../wizardconfigs/oewizard.xml

Data Generation Runtime Metrics
+-------------------------+-------------+
| Description             | Value       |
+-------------------------+-------------+
| Connection Time         | 0:00:00.008 |
| Data Generation Time    | 0:01:47.040 |
| DDL Creation Time       | 0:02:05.722 |
| Total Run Time          | 0:03:52.777 |
| Rows Inserted per sec   | 148,213     |
| Actual Rows Generated   | 15,887,043  |
| Commits Completed       | 995         |
| Batch Updates Completed | 79,631      |
+-------------------------+-------------+

Validation Report
The schema appears to have been created successfully.

Valid Objects
Valid Tables : 'ORDERS','ORDER_ITEMS','CUSTOMERS',
[...]
Valid Sequences : 'CUSTOMER_SEQ','ORDERS_SEQ','ADDRESS_SEQ','LOGON_SEQ','CARD_DETAILS_SEQ'
Valid Code : 'ORDERENTRY'
Schema Created

[|=| server in ~ ]$


[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ podman run --name swingbench --rm -i -t ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest  \
charbench -u soe -p soe -cs rac1-scan:1521/PDB191 \
-c ../configs/SOE_Server_Side_V2.xml -mr
Trying to pull ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest...
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob 133e58ac4e38 skipped: already exists
Copying blob 4f9e06383f5c skipped: already exists
Copying blob 65f7d2377e3d skipped: already exists
Copying blob 39f3ff148085 skipped: already exists
Copying blob 780ee5cf234b skipped: already exists
Copying config 7158508bcb done   |
Writing manifest to image destination
Swingbench
Author  :    Dominic Giles
Version :    2.8.0.1630

Results will be written to results.xml
Hit Return to Terminate Run...

Time        Users   TPM TPS

10:42:42 AM     16      26108   640
---------------------------------------------------------------
|Results of Charbench Run                                     |
---------------------------------------------------------------
|Benchmark Name                |Order Entry benchmark using serverside plsql Version 2|
|Time of Run                   |     Mar 30, 2026, 10:41:55 AM|
|Length of Benchmark           |                       0:00:48|
|Total Logon Time              |                       0:00:01|
|Total Completed Transactions  |                         26910|
|Total Failed Transactions     |                             0|
|Maximum Transactions/min      |                         26811|
|Average Transactions/sec      |                        560.62|
|Total Select Statements       |                        286419|
|Total Insert Statements       |                         49577|
|Total Update Statements       |                         37317|
|Total Delete Statements       |                             0|
|Total Commit Statements       |                         27126|
|Total Rollback Statements     |                             0|

[...]

|Transaction :  Browse Orders                                 |
---------------------------------------------------------------
|Minimum Response Time         |                             3|
|Maximum Response Time         |                           468|
|Average Response Time         |                         19.39|
|Geometric Mean Response Time  |                         16.20|
|Median Response Time          |                         16.05|
|Number of Transactions        |                          1068|
|Failed Transactions           |                             0|
|Rolled Back Transactions      |                             0|
---------------------------------------------------------------
Saved results to results.xml
Completed Run.
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ podman run --name swingbench --rm -i -t ghcr.io/project-42/swingbench:latest  \
sbutil -u soe -p soe  -cs rac1-scan:1521/PDB191 \
-soe parallel 12 -dup 1
Getting table Info
Got table information. Completed in : 0:00:04.618
[...]
Determining New Row Counts
Got New Row Counts. Completed in : 0:00:06.011
+--------------+--------------------+---------------+---------------+----------+
| Table Name   | Original Row Count | Original Size | New Row Count | New Size |
+--------------+--------------------+---------------+---------------+----------+
| ORDER_ITEMS  | 7,201,293          | 530 MB        | 7,201,293     | 555 MB   |
| CUSTOMERS    | 1,003,372          | 153 MB        | 1,003,372     | 163 MB   |
| CARD_DETAILS | 1,503,372          | 94 MB         | 1,503,372     | 101 MB   |
| ORDERS       | 1,438,803          | 202 MB        | 1,438,803     | 213 MB   |
| INVENTORIES  | 897,112            | 175 MB        | 897,112       | 186 MB   |
| ADDRESSES    | 1,503,709          | 138 MB        | 1,503,709     | 143 MB   |
| Total        |                    | 1.3 GB        |               | 1.3 GB   |
+--------------+--------------------+---------------+---------------+----------+

Completeted duplication for the order entry schema

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

5. Conclusion

To be honest, not sure how much I would use it in real environment, but I can see systems where you may have access to use containers and can create your swingbench image in your organization repository so you can use from any box.

In any case, if you want to give it a go, check it out here, and remember to check the original website for more updates and how to use it

https://github.com/Project-42/SwingbenchContainer

https://github.com/users/Project-42/packages/container/package/swingbench

www.dominicgiles.com/swingbench.html

How to Monitor Root and User-Level Podman Containers with Grafana

Project-42 — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:43:55 +0000

I wanted to give it a try to Grafana (again) and in this case, to make sure I can monitor podman containers running from different user namespaces

1. podman-exporter Containers
2. Prometheus Container
3. Grafana Container
4. Deployment
5. Adding a Dashboard to Grafana
- 5.1 Login into Grafana
- 5.2 Add the Prometheus connection
- 5.3 Import the Monitoring Dashboard

1. podman-exporter Containers

To extract the information from the podman containers, will be using 2 different podman-exporter Containers. One for the root podman containers and another one for the user solifugo (uid 1001)

First, create the quadlet files.
podman-exporter needs high privileges to "see" into other containers.
Note the Volume paths specific to Podman.

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat /etc/containers/systemd/podman-exporter.container
[Unit]
Description=Podman Prometheus Exporter
After=network-online.target

[Container]
Image=quay.io/navidys/prometheus-podman-exporter:latest
ContainerName=podman-exporter
Network=host
Environment=CONTAINER_HOST=unix:///run/podman/podman.sock
Volume=/run/podman/podman.sock:/run/podman/podman.sock:ro
User=0
Group=0

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

To monitor the containers from solifugo user (uid 1001) we setup a second container podman-exporter

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat /etc/containers/systemd/podman-exporter-user1001.container
[Unit]
Description=Podman Prometheus Exporter for User 1001
After=network-online.target

[Container]
Image=quay.io/navidys/prometheus-podman-exporter:latest
ContainerName=podman-exporter-user1001
Network=host
Environment=HOME=/home/solifugo
Environment=CONTAINER_HOST=unix:///run/user/1001/podman/podman.sock
Volume=/run/user/1001/podman/podman.sock:/run/user/1001/podman/podman.sock:ro
Mount=type=tmpfs,tmpfs-size=64M,destination=/home/solifugo
User=1001
Group=1001
Exec=--web.listen-address=:9455

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

2. Prometheus Container

Now we can create the prometheus deployment.
First, create your prometheus.yml on the host

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat /home/solifugo/pods/prometheus/prometheus.yml
global:
  scrape_interval: 15s

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'podman-exporter'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9882']

  - job_name: 'podman-user1001'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:9455']

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

Create the quadlet file making sure we add the yml file as part as a volume

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat /etc/containers/systemd/prometheus.container
[Unit]
Description=Prometheus Metrics Collector
After=network-online.target

[Container]
Image=docker.io/prom/prometheus:latest
ContainerName=prometheus
Network=host
User=1001
PublishPort=9090:9090
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/prometheus/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/prometheus/data:/prometheus

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

3. Grafana Container

We can create now the Grfana deployment
This is the quadlet file

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat /etc/containers/systemd/grafana.container
[Unit]
Description=Grafana Dashboard
# 'After' ensures they start in the right order
After=prometheus.service podman-exporter.service podman-exporter-user1001.service
# 'Requires' ensures if they fail or stop, Grafana knows it's missing its heart
Requires=prometheus.service podman-exporter.service podman-exporter-user1001.service

[Container]
Image=grafana/grafana:latest
ContainerName=grafana
Network=host
PublishPort=3000:3000
#Access to the volume as user solifugo/1001
User=1001
Environment=GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=yoursecurepassword
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/grafana:/var/lib/grafana

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

4. Deployment

Once the files are in /etc/containers/systemd/ we can reload the systemd daemon and start the stack by starting grafana (Because of the dependencies After=, this will pull in Prometheus and the Network automatically):

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ sudo systemctl restart grafana

You should be able to see the targets from the prometheus interface

5. Adding a Dashboard to Grafana

5.1 Login into Grafana

5.2 Add the Prometheus connection

Click the Menu (hamburger icon) > Connections > Data Sources.

Click Add data source and select Prometheus.

In the Connection URL field:

If using Host Networking: Enter http://localhost:9090.

Scroll to the bottom and click Save & test. You should see a green checkmark saying "Data source is working."

5.3 Import the Monitoring Dashboard

Click the Menu > Dashboards.

Click New > Import.

ID: 21559 (Podman Exporter Dashboard) – A dashboard that uses the exact same metrics the exporter is currently providing.

And voila!, we got all of the containers visible:

Lightweight Container Monitoring: Setting up Beszel on Podman

Project-42 — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:10:22 +0000

I have recently discovered a nice and lightweight monitoring tool that give you an overview of podman container status, so decided to give it a try

1. Beszel hub deployment
2. Beszel agent deployment (local)
3. Beszel agent deployment (remote)
4. Additional Details

1. Beszel hub deployment

Create volumes folder destination and quadlet file for the beszel_hub



[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ mkdir -p /home/solifugo/pods/beszel/beszel_data
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ mkdir -p /home/solifugo/pods/beszel/beszel_socket
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$
[|=| raspi in ~/pods ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/beszel_hub.container
[Unit]
Description=beszel hub

[Container]
Image=docker.io/henrygd/beszel
ContainerName=beszel_hub
AutoUpdate=registry
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/beszel/beszel_data:/beszel_data
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/beszel/beszel_socket:/beszel_socket
PublishPort=8090:8090

[Service]
Restart=unless-stopped

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~/pods ]$

We need to start beszel_hub in order to create the Admin user and capture some details for the Agent:

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user start beszel_hub.service
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                             COMMAND               CREATED         STATUS                   PORTS                   NAMES
641ede03f72a  docker.io/henrygd/beszel:latest   serve --http=0.0....  3 minutes ago   Up 3 minutes             0.0.0.0:8090->8090/tcp  beszel_hub
c01b90706e13  docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  --default-authent...  24 seconds ago  Up 24 seconds            0.0.0.0:3306->3306/tcp  mariadb
d03052aaf5b5  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   apache2-foregroun...  24 seconds ago  Up 23 seconds (healthy)  0.0.0.0:8042->80/tcp    systemd-wordpress

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

Once we have entered the system, select "+ Add System" and we add the name of the monitored system and in this case, since the agent is local to the hub, we will add /beszel_socket/beszel.sock to the "Host / IP" field

Remember to copy both the Public Key and Token which will be needed to configure the Agent container

2. Beszel agent deployment (local)

Create volumes folder destination and quadlet file for the beszel_agent.

We need to make sure we add the volumen for podman socket (double check the user id which own it, in our case is 1001)

We also add the volume for the beszel_socket (since is local Agent)

After that, add to the Environment Public Key and Token and since this is local Agent, we need to add LISTEN=/beszel_socket/beszel.sock
(More information in Beszel website on this: https://beszel.dev/guide/common-issues#connecting-hub-and-agent-on-the-same-system-using-docker)

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ mkdir -p /home/solifugo/pods/beszel/beszel_agent_data
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/beszel_agent.container
[Unit]
Description=beszel agent

[Container]
Image=docker.io/henrygd/beszel-agent:latest
ContainerName=beszel_agent
AutoUpdate=registry
User=1001
Volume=/run/user/1001/podman/podman.sock:/run/user/1001/podman/podman.sock:ro
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/beszel/beszel_agent_data:/var/lib/beszel-agent
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/beszel/beszel_socket:/beszel_socket
Environment=KEY="ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIOgfG4iXqHmqcYT/LhNQvgNCRA0HIIxEHjnk79rg+ypF" HUB_URL="http://localhost:8090" TOKEN="5f2b-126b3d08f8-a8dd-e796537cf8" LISTEN=/beszel_socket/beszel.sock
Network=host

[Service]
Restart=unless-stopped

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user start beszel_agent.service
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                                  COMMAND               CREATED         STATUS                   PORTS                   NAMES
641ede03f72a  docker.io/henrygd/beszel:latest        serve --http=0.0....  18 minutes ago  Up 18 minutes            0.0.0.0:8090->8090/tcp  beszel_hub
c01b90706e13  docker.io/library/mariadb:latest       --default-authent...  15 minutes ago  Up 15 minutes            0.0.0.0:3306->3306/tcp  mariadb
d03052aaf5b5  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1        apache2-foregroun...  15 minutes ago  Up 15 minutes (healthy)  0.0.0.0:8042->80/tcp    systemd-wordpress
5dd1a629b6bb  docker.io/henrygd/beszel-agent:latest                        16 seconds ago  Up 16 seconds                                    beszel_agent

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

Once we start the Agent, we should just click Add system in the Hub and we should see the system

3. Beszel agent deployment (remote)

If we are adding a remote Agent, we just specify IP/port instead of the Unix socket (beszel.sock)

[|=| penguin in ~ ]$ podman run -d   --name beszel-agent  \
--user 1000   --network host   --restart unless-stopped  \
 -v /run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock:/run/user/1000/podman/podman.sock:ro   \
 -e KEY="ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIOgfG4iXqHmqcYT/LhNQvgNCRA0HIIxEHjnk79rg+ypF"  \
 -e HUB_URL="http://192.168.0.130:8090"   \
 -e TOKEN="5be-0f813ae513-27d9-83664c253c"   \
 -e LISTEN=45876   \
 docker.io/henrygd/beszel-agent:latest

463c33d4cb24aa79193375deebb0a99be86ca53f0ba4a13ce291a0d429a119c4

[|=| penguin in ~ ]$

4. Additional Details

Make sure podman socket is running:

[|=| raspi in ~/pods ]$ systemctl --user enable podman.socket
[|=| raspi in ~/pods ]$ systemctl --user start podman.socket
[|=| raspi in ~/pods ]$ systemctl --user status podman.socket
● podman.socket - Podman API Socket
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/podman.socket; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (listening) since Wed 2026-02-18 15:37:35 GMT; 17h ago
 Invocation: aeff63f6592d4d5d9fc3fce56f78286d
   Triggers: ● podman.service
       Docs: man:podman-system-service(1)
     Listen: /run/user/1001/podman/podman.sock (Stream)
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1001.slice/user@1001.service/app.slice/podman.socket

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

For Raspberry pi, you can hit this issue when trying to get container memory stats:

Error getting container stats err="systemd-wordpress - bad memory stats - see https://github.com/henrygd/beszel/issues/144"
Error getting container stats err="mariadb - bad memory stats - see https://github.com/henrygd/beszel/issues/144"

Solution can be find here, which is to add some componenets to firmware/cmdline.txt
https://akashrajpurohit.com/blog/resolving-missing-memory-stats-in-docker-stats-on-raspberry-pi/

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ sudo cat /boot/cmdline.txt
console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=dc0d2f94-02 rootfstype=ext4 fsck.repair=yes rootwait cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_enable=memory cgroup_memory=1

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

If you are trying to run podman in Crostini (Chromebook Linux subsystem) you can find some help here: Setup Podman on Chrome OS Flex and Crostini.md (I had to run the Troubleshooting additional commands to get it working)

How to Configure Podman Auto-Updates and Health-Check Rollbacks

Project-42 — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:55:06 +0000

In this post, I wanted to test podman autoupdate and how the "self healing" (rollback) action works,
(you can check this post to see how to setup local repository and modify a wordpress image How to Set Up a Local Podman Registry and Customize Podman Images)

1. Change wordpress container
2. Start the service with the new image
3. Modify the Containerfile
4. Testing Autoupdate
5. Testing "self-healing" or "auto-rollback"
6. Setting systemd podman auto-update execution

1. Change wordpress container

I currently run the docker.io wordpress image as you can see below

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                               STATUS         NAMES
414c230b5e8c  docker.io/library/mariadb:latest    Up 5 days      mariadb
f95dbc9e18a6  docker.io/library/wordpress:latest  Up 5 days      systemd-wordpress
39954e773035  docker.io/library/registry:2        Up 42 minutes  local-registry

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

To change to my local image and make podman autoupdate to work, I have modified the lines entries for Image and AutoUpdate

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/wordpress.container
[Unit]
Description=WordPress Web Server
After=mariadb.service

[Container]
Image=localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
AutoUpdate=registry
Environment=WORDPRESS_DB_HOST=mariadb:3306
Environment=WORDPRESS_DB_USER=wordpress
WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD=wordpress
WORDPRESS_DB_NAME=wordpress
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/wordpress/wp-content:/var/www/html/wp-content
PublishPort=8042:80
Network=wp.network

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

2. Start the service with the new image

To make sure we are using the local image, we will execute the following:

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user stop wordpress.service
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman rm -f wordpress
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload

We can now start the service with local image:

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user start wordpress.service

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                             STATUS             NAMES
39954e773035  docker.io/library/registry:2      Up About an hour   local-registry
de197041e7b9  docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  Up 7 minutes       mariadb
72cef8edcee3  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   Up About a minute  systemd-wordpress

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

3. Modify the Containerfile

Let's add a "version" file or a simple comment so we can verify the change later.

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ cat Containerfile
# Use the official WordPress image as a base
FROM docker.io/library/wordpress:latest

# Example: Increase the upload size by creating a custom PHP config
RUN echo 'file_uploads = On\nmemory_limit = 256M\nupload_max_filesize = 64M\npost_max_size = 64M\nmax_execution_time = 300' > /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/uploads.ini

# NEW: Add a simple version file we can check
RUN echo "Update Test - Version 2.0" > /image_version.txt

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

We can now Build it and and Push the "New" v1 (We are going to overwrite the :v1 tag for simplicity)

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman build -t localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1 .
STEP 1/3: FROM docker.io/library/wordpress:latest
STEP 2/3: RUN echo 'file_uploads = On\nmemory_limit = 256M\nupload_max_filesize = 64M\npost_max_size = 64M\nmax_execution_time = 300' > /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/uploads.ini
--> Using cache 6213e109406f3ce3ac791b8a8b2d57cf3d678b7c4bb8ede40be427c149b86b18
--> 6213e109406f
STEP 3/3: RUN echo "Update Test - Version 2.0" > /image_version.txt
COMMIT localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
--> fe462c1e2d14
Successfully tagged localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
fe462c1e2d14c4e87261be851e6b76cf686ff4dbedf4dc050b77a0ea9ef537cc

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman push localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob 38c51b789feb skipped: already exists
[...]
Copying blob 9926eecc266a done   |
Copying blob bd9ddc54bea9 skipped: already exists
Copying blob 1fb5b7dba217 skipped: already exists
Copying blob ae1a66031d13 skipped: already exists
Copying config fe462c1e2d done   |
Writing manifest to image destination

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

4. Testing Autoupdate

Now we can see how we have an update pending:

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman auto-update --dry-run
UNIT               IMAGE                             POLICY      UPDATED
wordpress.service  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   registry    pending
mariadb.service    docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  registry    false

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

Let's execute the update and confirm we can see the new file added in the image:

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman auto-update
Trying to pull localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1...
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob 9860aa0d13b7 skipped: already exists
[...]
Copying blob 723c4da029f2 skipped: already exists
Copying config fe462c1e2d done   |
Writing manifest to image destination
UNIT               IMAGE                             POLICY      UPDATED
mariadb.service    docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  registry    false
wordpress.service  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   registry    true

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman exec systemd-wordpress cat /image_version.txt
Update Test - Version 2.0

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

5. Testing "self-healing" or "auto-rollback"

One of the best things about podman autoupdate, is the fact that will rollback an update if it is unable to complete the deployment after the update

Let's modify the local image again this time adding a break point as below:

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ cat Containerfile
# Use the official WordPress image as a base
FROM docker.io/library/wordpress:latest

# Example: Increase the upload size by creating a custom PHP config
RUN echo 'file_uploads = On\nmemory_limit = 256M\nupload_max_filesize = 64M\npost_max_size = 64M\nmax_execution_time = 300' > /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/uploads.ini

# BROKEN STEP: Force the container to fail on startup
# This tries to run a non-existent script
ENTRYPOINT ["/bin/bash", "-c", "exit 1"]

# NEW: Add a simple version file we can check
RUN echo "Update Test - Version 3.0" > /image_version.txt

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman build -t localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1 .
STEP 1/4: FROM docker.io/library/wordpress:latest
STEP 2/4: RUN echo 'file_uploads = On\nmemory_limit = 256M\nupload_max_filesize = 64M\npost_max_size = 64M\nmax_execution_time = 300' > /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/uploads.ini
--> Using cache 6213e109406f3ce3ac791b8a8b2d57cf3d678b7c4bb8ede40be427c149b86b18
--> 6213e109406f
STEP 3/4: ENTRYPOINT ["/bin/bash", "-c", "exit 1"]
--> Using cache 009309cf75edc7d7d12c7898cf6a464a90f472c7e8c9762f24d0a7488ae6608f
--> 009309cf75ed
STEP 4/4: RUN echo "Update Test - Version 3.0" > /image_version.txt
COMMIT localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
--> 3a3adcb35052
Successfully tagged localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
3a3adcb35052464966b9c87f4f2f9f41d7e920e8b79b944a6346291cd6ca158d

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman push localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
Getting image source signatures
[...]
Copying blob 3c09e98b8858 done   |
Copying blob d905cab7558a skipped: already exists
Copying blob 69a4f4da7ad4 skipped: already exists
Copying blob 3b5472ea1c23 skipped: already exists
Copying blob 843bf501e50b skipped: already exists
Copying config 3a3adcb350 done   |
Writing manifest to image destination

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

To make sure podman is aware of the issue, we can add Health Checks and make sure podman notifies systemd that health check is passed.

Remember that the health commands are executed inside the container, so the port will be 80 and not 8042 that is the host published port.

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/wordpress.container
[Unit]
Description=WordPress Web Server
After=mariadb.service

[Container]
Image=localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
AutoUpdate=registry
#NEW Health Checks commands
HealthCmd=curl --fail http://localhost:80
HealthInterval=5s
HealthRetries=1
# Force Podman to wait for the health check before saying "I'm done"
Notify=healthy
Environment=WORDPRESS_DB_HOST=mariadb:3306 WORDPRESS_DB_USER=wordpress WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD=wordpress WORDPRESS_DB_NAME=wordpress
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/wordpress/wp-content:/var/www/html/wp-content
PublishPort=8042:80
Network=wp.network

[Service]
Type=notify
# Disable the immediate restart loop so it doesn't "Repeat too quickly"
Restart=no
# Give the health check time to actually fail
TimeoutStartSec=40

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                             STATUS                  NAMES
39954e773035  docker.io/library/registry:2      Up 2 hours              local-registry
de197041e7b9  docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  Up About an hour        mariadb
375d7658f685  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   Up 4 minutes (healthy)  systemd-wordpress
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman auto-update --dry-run
UNIT               IMAGE                             POLICY      UPDATED
wordpress.service  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   registry    pending
mariadb.service    docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  registry    false

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

When we execute the update, podman will rollback the update and restart the container again

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman auto-update
Trying to pull localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1...
Getting image source signatures
[...]
Copying blob 843bf501e50b skipped: already exists
Copying config 3a3adcb350 done   |
Writing manifest to image destination
UNIT               IMAGE                             POLICY      UPDATED
mariadb.service    docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  registry    false
wordpress.service  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   registry    rolled back

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE                             STATUS                  NAMES
39954e773035  docker.io/library/registry:2      Up 2 hours              local-registry
de197041e7b9  docker.io/library/mariadb:latest  Up 2 hours              mariadb
9cb996a3112a  localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1   Up 9 seconds (healthy)  systemd-wordpress

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

6. Setting systemd podman auto-update execution

Podman comes with a pre-configured systemd timer that runs podman auto-update.
Just make sure you edit the timer and enable it (by default would be executed every day midnight)

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user edit podman-auto-update.timer
Successfully installed edited file '/home/solifugo/.config/systemd/user/podman-auto-update.timer.d/override.conf'.
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ cat /home/solifugo/.config/systemd/user/podman-auto-update.timer.d/override.conf
[Timer]
OnCalendar=
OnCalendar=Mon *-*-* 03:00:00

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user enable --now podman-auto-update.timer
Created symlink '/home/solifugo/.config/systemd/user/timers.target.wants/podman-auto-update.timer' → '/usr/lib/systemd/user/podman-auto-update.timer'.

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ systemctl --user list-timers podman-auto-update.timer
NEXT                          LEFT LAST PASSED UNIT                     ACTIVATES
Mon 2026-03-02 03:10:04 GMT 5 days -         - podman-auto-update.timer podman-auto-update.service

1 timers listed.
Pass --all to see loaded but inactive timers, too.
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

How to Set Up a Local Podman Registry and Customize Podman Images

Project-42 — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:28:48 +0000

It is never bad idea to keep local container repositories, specially if you need to add modifications to the containers for your specific environment

This will also will make easier some local testing

1. Create a Local Podman Registry
- 1.1. Pull and run the registry image.
- 1.2. Configure "Insecure" access.
2. Modify a WordPress Container Image
- 2.1. Create your Containerfile
3. Build and Push to your Local Registry

1. Create a Local Podman Registry

1.1. Pull and run the registry image.

Run this command to start a registry on port 5000:

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ podman run -d -p 5000:5000 --restart=always --name local-registry registry:2
Resolved "registry" as an alias (/etc/containers/registries.conf.d/shortnames.conf)
Trying to pull docker.io/library/registry:2...
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob bd39ca3613a6 done   |
Copying blob ddcb6d98388d done   |
Copying blob 9a6b3f59ebc2 done   |
Copying blob 8bbaad1488a8 done   |
Copying blob 95459497489f done   |
Copying config 33eeff39e0 done   |
Writing manifest to image destination
39954e773035d07c13f5f458a8e16a39ffa4e171649792287c38af9646866bd2

1.2. Configure "Insecure" access.

By default, Podman expects registries to use HTTPS. For a local setup, you need to tell Podman it’s okay to use HTTP for localhost.
Edit (or create) /etc/containers/registries.conf and add the following registry entry
Be careful, if you have a specific regitries conf file for the user creating the container, you need to modify that file (default location is /home/{solifugo}/.config/containers/registries.conf)

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ ls -lrth /etc/containers/registries.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.8K Mar  7  2025 /etc/containers/registries.conf

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ sudo nano /etc/containers/registries.conf

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ tail -5 /etc/containers/registries.conf
# # 3. internal-registry-for-example.com/bar/image:latest
# # in order, and use the first one that exists.
[[registry]]
location = "localhost:5000"
insecure = true

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

2. Modify a WordPress Container Image

The best way to modify an image is via a Containerfile (Podman's version of a Dockerfile).
In this example we increase the PHP upload limit:

2.1. Create your Containerfile

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cd /home/solifugo/pods/p42_wordpress
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ cat Containerfile
# Use the official WordPress image as a base
FROM docker.io/library/wordpress:latest

# Example: Increase the upload size by creating a custom PHP config
RUN echo 'file_uploads = On\nmemory_limit = 256M\nupload_max_filesize = 64M\npost_max_size = 64M\nmax_execution_time = 300' > /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/uploads.ini

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

3. Build and Push to your Local Registry

Now, let's build the image and store it in the local registry

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman build -t localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1 .
STEP 1/2: FROM docker.io/library/wordpress:latest
STEP 2/2: RUN echo 'file_uploads = On\nmemory_limit = 256M\nupload_max_filesize = 64M\npost_max_size = 64M\nmax_execution_time = 300' > /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/uploads.ini
COMMIT localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
--> 6213e109406f
Successfully tagged localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
6213e109406f3ce3ac791b8a8b2d57cf3d678b7c4bb8ede40be427c149b86b18

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ podman push localhost:5000/p42_wordpress:v1
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob a0e71ab2b234 done   |
[...]
Copying config 6213e10940 done   |
Writing manifest to image destination

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

We can check the local registry by using the following:

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$ curl http://localhost:5000/v2/_catalog
{"repositories":["p42_wordpress"]}

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/p42_wordpress ]$

Building Multi-Container Applications using Podman Quadlets

Project-42 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:26:58 +0000

A perfect practical application for Quadlets is deploying a WordPress stack.
This illustrates how multiple containers can communicate with each other.

1. Common Network (wp.network)
2. The mariadb Container (mariadb.container)
3. The WordPress Container (wordpress.container)
4. Key Adjustments Made
5. How to Start It

1. Common Network (wp.network)

Create a quadlet network file at ~/.config/containers/systemd/wp.network

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/wp.network
[Network]
Label=app=wordpress

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$

2. The mariadb Container (mariadb.container)

Create a quadlet container file at ~/.config/containers/systemd/

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/mariadb.container
[Unit]
Description=MariaDB WordPress Database

[Container]
ContainerName=mariadb
Image=docker.io/library/mariadb:latest
# Quadlet likes environment variables on one line or using a separate env file
Environment=MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=wordpress MYSQL_DATABASE=wordpress MYSQL_USER=wordpress MYSQL_PASSWORD=wordpress
Exec=--default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/wordpress/db_data:/var/lib/mysql
Network=wp.network
PublishPort=3306:3306

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=wordpress.service multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$

3. The WordPress Container (wordpress.container)

Create a quadlet container file at ~/.config/containers/systemd/

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/wordpress.container
[Unit]
Description=WordPress Web Server
After=mariadb.service

[Container]
Image=docker.io/library/wordpress:latest
Environment=WORDPRESS_DB_HOST=mariadb:3306 WORDPRESS_DB_USER=wordpress WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD=wordpress WORDPRESS_DB_NAME=wordpress
Volume=/home/solifugo/pods/wordpress/wp-content:/var/www/html/wp-content
PublishPort=8042:80
Network=wp.network

[Service]
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$

4. Key Adjustments Made

Networking: In Podman, containers in the same default network can talk to each other using their filenames as hostnames.
I set WORDPRESS_DB_HOST=mariadb to match the mariadb.container filename.
Dependencies: The After=mariadb.service line in the WordPress file ensures the database attempts to start before the web server.

5. How to Start It

Once the files are in ~/.config/containers/systemd/, run the following commands:

Reload systemd to generate the services and start the service

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$ systemctl --user list-unit-files |grep -E 'word|mari'
mariadb.service                                generated -
wordpress.service                              generated -

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$ systemctl --user start wordpress.service

[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$ systemctl --user status wordpress.service
● wordpress.service - WordPress Web Server
     Loaded: loaded (/home/solifugo/.config/containers/systemd/wordpress.container; generated)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2026-02-13 12:30:18 GMT; 3 days ago
 Invocation: b544331ed44d4d1f8092e71265ab7783
   Main PID: 1511243 (conmon)
      Tasks: 23 (limit: 8750)
        CPU: 20.699s
[...]
[|=| raspi in ~/pods/wordpress ]$

And voila! we got our wordpress installation ready

How to Run Podman Quadlets on Raspberry Pi

Project-42 — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:03:46 +0000

I'm trying to create a small set of articles related to podman, so I thought about starting from the start; how to get it running in my Raspberry Pi, which is using Debian 13 (trixie)

1. Install Podman
2. Prepare the User Environment
3. Create the Quadlet Directory
4. Create a Sample Quadlet
5. Activate and Start the Service
6. Enable Service at boot

1. Install Podman

First, update your package list and install Podman.

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y podman
Get:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security InRelease [43.4 kB]
Get:2 http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian trixie InRelease [54.8 kB]
[...]
Installing:
  podman

Suggested packages:
  docker-compose

Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 1, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 4
  Download size: 21.2 MB
  Space needed: 82.6 MB / 195 GB available

Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie/main arm64 podman arm64 5.4.2+ds1-2+b2 [21.2 MB]
Fetched 21.2 MB in 1s (16.7 MB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package podman.
(Reading database ... 76622 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../podman_5.4.2+ds1-2+b2_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking podman (5.4.2+ds1-2+b2) ...
Setting up podman (5.4.2+ds1-2+b2) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.13.1-1) ...

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

2. Prepare the User Environment

For a local user to run services that start at boot (without being logged in), you must enable lingering. This allows the user's systemd instance to start on boot and stay running after logout.

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

3. Create the Quadlet Directory

Quadlets for local users are stored in a specific directory within your home folder. Systemd will look here to generate the service files.

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/systemd

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

4. Create a Sample Quadlet

To test the setup, create a simple container Quadlet file (e.g., a basic Nginx server).

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/hello.container
[Unit]
Description=A simple Quadlet container

[Container]
Image=docker.io/library/nginx:alpine
PublishPort=4242:80

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

5. Activate and Start the Service

Because Quadlets use a systemd generator, you must reload the user-level daemon to "see" the new file and generate the underlying .service file.

# Reload the user's systemd daemon
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$
# Start and confirm the generated service status

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user start hello.service

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user status hello.service
● hello.service - A simple Quadlet container
     Loaded: loaded (/home/solifugo/.config/containers/systemd/hello.container; generated)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-02-16 13:31:49 GMT; 7s ago
[...]
[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ curl 127.0.0.1:4242
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Welcome to nginx!</title>
<style>
html { color-scheme: light dark; }
body { width: 35em; margin: 0 auto;
font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to nginx!</h1>
<p>If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and
working. Further configuration is required.</p>

<p>For online documentation and support please refer to
<a href="http://nginx.org/">nginx.org</a>.<br/>
Commercial support is available at
<a href="http://nginx.com/">nginx.com</a>.</p>

<p><em>Thank you for using nginx.</em></p>
</body>
</html>

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

6. Enable Service at boot

The enable command is used to enable a systemd service to start automatically on boot, however, for podman we can do it by including an [Install] section inside the .container file.

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/hello.container
[Unit]
Description=A simple Quadlet container

[Container]
Image=docker.io/library/nginx:alpine
PublishPort=4242:80

[Install]
# This is the "enable" equivalent for Quadlets
WantedBy=default.target

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

After changing the service file, we always need to reload the user-level daemon

We can confirm now that we are having a service symbolic link of the right folder so it will start automatically when booting into the default target

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ ls -l /run/user/$(id -u)/systemd/generator/default.target.wants/hello.service
ls: cannot access '/run/user/1001/systemd/generator/default.target.wants/hello.service': No such file or directory

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ systemctl --user daemon-reload

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$ ls -l /run/user/$(id -u)/systemd/generator/default.target.wants/hello.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 solifugo solifugo 16 Feb 16 13:49 /run/user/1001/systemd/generator/default.target.wants/hello.service -> ../hello.service

[|=| raspi in ~ ]$

There you have it, with Podman and Quadlets now configured, we are ready to manage containerized services as native systemd units.

Creating Oracle Real Application Clusters with Vagrant

Project-42 — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 13:18:30 +0000

I tested some of the Vagrant projects made by Tim Hall a while ago (it was this blog very first post), but I never got to use it too much since they were created to be used with VirtualBox.

Since I decided to get rid of my old lab and create a new one, I started looking for some options and found and Oracle git repository for Vagrant deployments.
The repository is very complete and the "OracleRAC" deployment was almost perfect of what I wanted to start with, specially the option to use VirtualBox or KVM/libVirt

After some tests, I decided to fork the Oracle repository and add some changes so I could also learn a bit more about Vagrant and the scripts they added to it (they are very good way to understand how Oracle clusters are deployed or Databases are created)

If you are looking for a good and simple deployment, please do use the Oracle repository, I'm sharing my fork since they could be people thinking about doing the same and maybe this could help them in the process, but I don't really think I added anything very useful to most people.
Anyway, please have a look to the fork if you think it could be good for you :)

https://github.com/Project-42/vagrant-projects/tree/main/OracleRAC

This is the list of modifications made to the amazing original project

Second rac cluster added to be deployed independently

Extra 19c Database created in cluster "rac1" (See "db2_name:/db2_home/pdb2_name" etc.. under "config/vagrant.yml")

No databases are created in "rac2" (The intention is to create more scripts to create Standby Databases there)

Extra packages installed (nano highlight git mlocate bash-completion bash-it)

Extra packages to be able to install 11g databases (elfutils-libelf-devel-0 gcc-4*x86_64* gcc-c++-4*x86_64* numactl-devel-2*x86_64*)*

Changed Diskgroups to have External Redundancy and RDBMS compatibility to 11.2 in RECO case (Seems like you still need to change "_asm_allow_older_clients" to TRUE to be able to install 11g)

Bash profile modified (Current SID configured and pmon processes running)

oracle user added to sudoers with no password (I know, not very secure, but this is for a test after all)

DNS 8.8.8.8 added to resolv.conf

ORCL_software moved to have a central place for both Clusters

Added extra script to modify oratab file (Not working for second node of the cluster though)

Fred Denis oracle-scripts downloaded into /home/$USER/bin

sqlcl installed using Connor Mcdonald "getsqlcl" script

The way is deployed is the same way than the original one, just need some extra configuration added into "config/vagrant.yml" and allocate Oracle Database 19c Software into "ORCL_software".

For more info, check the Readme file

Hope you enjoy or at least makes you have a look of how useful Vagrant can be :)

Remember, 42 was never the Answer

Project-42 — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 10:14:26 +0000

"All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question..."
"Yes..!"
"Of Life, the Universe and Everything..." said Deep Thought.
"Yes...!"
"Is..." said Deep Thought, and paused.
"Yes...!"
"Is..."
"Yes...!!!...?"
"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This is probably the most famous quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and probably the most misleading...
The part that is not that easy to find, is the next part of the conversation:

“Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"

"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

and that for me is the most beautiful way to say:
without asking the correct questions, you will never find the correct answers.

If you are reading this, chances are that you just saw #JoelKallmanDay around twitter today, a brilliant idea from Tim Hall to commemorate Oracle community day. You can learn more about it in his post Joel Kallman Day : Announcement
Today's post is not about that new feature from 21c, the newest mistake I made trying to change a system parameter, but about joining the Oracle community and keep asking new questions.

Please continue checking #JoelKallmanDay, check for Oracle related Twitter lists to engage with people from the community, check for your local Oracle user groups to find virtual events, webinars or even presential events and if you like the old fashion blog content, you can start following some of these great blogs and people

So today more than ever, let's keep checking for new questions and sharing the knowledge

Creating a Standby on 21c [Single Instance]

Project-42 — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 07:50:58 +0000

For this post, I just wanted to test the same DBCA option we saw in the past to create Standby but this time on 21c.

The first thing I have to clarify is that I will be using rac1-node1 to host the 21c primary database (cdb21) and rac1-node2 to host our new Standby (cdbst21).

The installation of 21c DB_HOME is as simple as has been for last few versions, so I will skip it (you can see how to do it checking this 21c post)

Once we have the Oracle home, we need to setup tnsnames.ora file for the DBCA to be able to connect to our primary database service.

If you follow the news, you will notice that 21c is the first version that comes with read-only Oracle Home by default, which makes some of the old files location not possible. You can read more on this from this Fernando Simon's Post

For my test, I just copied the tnsnames.ora file I have in the Primary host to the standby host


-- Primary host

[oracle@rac1-node1 ~]$ scp -pr /u01/app/oracle/homes/OraDB21Home1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora rac1-node2:/u01/app/oracle/homes/OraDB21Home1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora

tnsnames.ora 100% 408 490.6KB/s 00:00

[oracle@rac1-node1 ~]$

-- Standby host

[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$ cat /u01/app/oracle/homes/OraDB21Home1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora

# tnsnames.ora Network Configuration File: /u01/app/oracle/homes/OraDB21Home1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora

# Generated by Oracle configuration tools.

LISTENER_CDB21 =

(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac1-node1)(PORT = 1521))

CDB21 =

(DESCRIPTION =

(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac1-node1)(PORT = 1521))

(CONNECT_DATA =

(SERVER = DEDICATED)

(SERVICE_NAME = cdb21)

)

)

[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$

Now that we got the tnsnames.ora file ready, we can create the standby using dbca.

The command I will be using is the same that worked back on 12.2 version and that you can see on this old post


[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$ . oraenv

ORACLE_SID = [oracle] ? cdbst21

ORACLE_HOME = [/home/oracle] ? /u01/app/oracle/product/21.0.0/dbhome_1

The Oracle base has been set to /u01/app/oracle

[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$

[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$ tnsping cdb21

TNS Ping Utility for Linux: Version 21.0.0.0.0 - Production on 12-SEP-2021 17:40:12

Copyright (c) 1997, 2021, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Used parameter files:

Used TNSNAMES adapter to resolve the alias

Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac1-node1)(PORT = 1521)) (CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED) (SERVICE_NAME = cdb21)))

OK (0 msec)

[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$

[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$ dbca -silent -createDuplicateDB \

> -gdbname cdb21 -sid cdbst21 \

> -initParams db_create_file_dest='/u01/oradata/' \

> -primaryDBConnectionString rac1-node1:1521/cdb21 \

> -sysPassword "Welcome1" \

> -createAsStandby \

> -dbUniqueName cdbst21

Prepare for db operation

22% complete

Listener config step

44% complete

Auxiliary instance creation

67% complete

RMAN duplicate

89% complete

Post duplicate database operations

100% complete

Look at the log file "/u01/app/oracle/cfgtoollogs/dbca/cdbst21/cdbst21.log" for further details.

[oracle@rac1-node2 ~]$

In order for the primary database to be able to connect to the standby, we need to add the information into the Primary node tnsnames.ora file as you can see below:


[oracle@rac1-node1 ~]$ cat /u01/app/oracle/homes/OraDB21Home1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora

# tnsnames.ora Network Configuration File: /u01/app/oracle/homes/OraDB21Home1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora

# Generated by Oracle configuration tools.

LISTENER_CDB21 =

(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac1-node1)(PORT = 1521))

CDB21 =

(DESCRIPTION =

(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac1-node1)(PORT = 1521))

(CONNECT_DATA =

(SERVER = DEDICATED)

(SERVICE_NAME = cdb21)

)

)

CDBST21 =

(DESCRIPTION =

(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac1-node2)(PORT = 1521))

(CONNECT_DATA =

(SERVER = DEDICATED)

(SERVICE_NAME = cdbst21)

)

)

[oracle@rac1-node1 ~]$

What we have to do now, is to create and enable (yes, I sometimes forget you have to enable it....) our Dataguard configuration on DG broker:


[oracle@rac1-node1 dbs]$ dgmgrl

DGMGRL for Linux: Release 21.0.0.0.0 - Production on Sun Sep 12 17:52:46 2021

Version 21.3.0.0.0

Copyright (c) 1982, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Welcome to DGMGRL, type "help" for information.

DGMGRL> connect sys/Welcome1@cdb21

Connected to "cdb21"

Connected as SYSDBA.

DGMGRL> CREATE CONFIGURATION DG_BROKER_CONFIG AS PRIMARY DATABASE IS "cdb21" CONNECT IDENTIFIER IS "cdb21";

Connected to "cdb21"

Configuration "dg_broker_config" created with primary database "cdb21"

DGMGRL>

DGMGRL> ADD DATABASE "cdbst21" AS CONNECT IDENTIFIER IS "cdbst21" MAINTAINED AS PHYSICAL;

Database "cdbst21" added

DGMGRL>

DGMGRL> show configuration

Configuration - dg_broker_config

Protection Mode: MaxPerformance

Members:

cdb21 - Primary database

cdbst21 - Physical standby database

Fast-Start Failover: Disabled

Configuration Status:

DISABLED

DGMGRL> enable configuration

Enabled.

DGMGRL>

And voilà!, our 21c Standby is ready for use :)


-- Standby Alerlog:

2021-09-12T17:55:55.215081+01:00

TT02 (PID:31812): All non-current ORLs have been archived [krsy.c:2195]

2021-09-12T17:55:55.229840+01:00

PR00 (PID:31769): Media Recovery Log /u01/oradata/CDB21/FRA/CDBST21/archivelog/2021_09_12/o1_mf_1_9_jmwd8on0_.arc [krd.c:9408]

2021-09-12T17:55:55.447581+01:00

Completed: ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE DISCONNECT NODELAY

2021-09-12T17:55:55.733940+01:00

Resize operation completed for file# 3, fname /u01/oradata/CDB21/CDBST21/datafile/o1_mf_sysaux_jmwch9nb_.dbf, old size 614400K, new size 634880K

PR00 (PID:31769): Media Recovery Waiting for T-1.S-10 (in transit) [krsm.c:6185]

2021-09-12T17:55:55.852791+01:00

Recovery of Online Redo Log: Thread 1 Group 4 Seq 10 Reading mem 0

Mem# 0: /u01/oradata/CDB21/CDBST21/onlinelog/o1_mf_4_jmwcjhq1_.log

Mem# 1: /u01/oradata/CDB21/FRA/CDBST21/onlinelog/o1_mf_4_jmwcjj2p_.log

-- Swithed logs on primary to make sure is all fine

SQL> select thread#,max(sequence#) from v$archived_log where first_time > sysdate -1 and status ='A' group by thread# order by thread#;

THREAD# MAX(SEQUENCE#)

---------- --------------

1 9

SQL> alter system archive log current;

System altered.

SQL> /

System altered.

SQL> /

System altered.

SQL> select thread#,max(sequence#) from v$archived_log where first_time > sysdate -1 and status ='A' group by thread# order by thread#;

THREAD# MAX(SEQUENCE#)

---------- --------------

1 12

SQL>

2021-09-12T18:01:03.917829+01:00

Recovery of Online Redo Log: Thread 1 Group 5 Seq 12 Reading mem 0

Mem# 0: /u01/oradata/CDB21/CDBST21/onlinelog/o1_mf_5_jmwcjjyj_.log

Mem# 1: /u01/oradata/CDB21/FRA/CDBST21/onlinelog/o1_mf_5_jmwcjk8o_.log

2021-09-12T18:01:08.841412+01:00

rfs (PID:32296): Opened LNO:4 for DBID:2834326897 B-1080656818.T-1.S-13 [krsr.c:18143]

2021-09-12T18:01:08.841639+01:00

ARC2 (PID:30356): Archived Log entry 6 added for B-1080656818.T-1.S-12 ID 0x7ff9a8eff571 LAD:1 [krse.c:4933]

2021-09-12T18:01:08.901532+01:00

PR00 (PID:31769): Media Recovery Waiting for T-1.S-13 (in transit) [krsm.c:6185]

2021-09-12T18:01:08.902611+01:00

Recovery of Online Redo Log: Thread 1 Group 4 Seq 13 Reading mem 0

Mem# 0: /u01/oradata/CDB21/CDBST21/onlinelog/o1_mf_4_jmwcjhq1_.log

Mem# 1: /u01/oradata/CDB21/FRA/CDBST21/onlinelog/o1_mf_4_jmwcjj2p_.log

DGMGRL> show database cdbst21

Database - cdbst21

Role: PHYSICAL STANDBY

Intended State: APPLY-ON

Transport Lag: 0 seconds (computed 1 second ago)

Apply Lag: 0 seconds (computed 1 second ago)

Average Apply Rate: 30.00 KByte/s

Real Time Query: ON

Instance(s):

cdbst21

Database Status:

SUCCESS

DGMGRL>

As mentioned, nothing particular different than didnt work already on previous versions.

Hope you've enjoyed the post and be ready for more posts about Oracle Database 21c :)

Upgrading Oracle Linux 7 to 8 With Leapp

Project-42 — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 10:46:11 +0000

I was wondering the other day how can I easily upgrade a OL7 to OL8, and looks like Oracle has the exact tool for the process:

Oracle® Linux 8 Performing System Upgrades With Leapp

This is the system I will try to upgrade:

[root@OL7 ~]# head -1 /etc/*rel*
==> /etc/oracle-release <==
Oracle Linux Server release 7.9

==> /etc/os-release <==
NAME="Oracle Linux Server"

==> /etc/prelink.conf.d <==
head: error reading ‘/etc/prelink.conf.d’: Is a directory

==> /etc/redhat-release <==
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.9 (Maipo)

==> /etc/system-release <==
Oracle Linux Server release 7.9

==> /etc/system-release-cpe <==
cpe:/o:oracle:linux:7:9:server
[root@OL7 ~]#

First, we need to make sure boot manager is disabled. Since this is a VM, I can not see a boot manager, so we are clear:

[root@OL7 ~]# bootctl status
System:
   Machine ID: 01a9ea161568458ba5d6f29e505d4c13
      Boot ID: 965df6b728634b0287b3f4059b3c1807


No suitable data is provided by the boot manager. See:
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/BootLoaderInterface
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec
for details.

Confirm the locale is set to en_US.UTF-8

[root@OL7 ~]# cat /etc/locale.conf
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

Update the system to make sure you are on latest version and all packages are updated and reboot the system

[root@OL7 ~]# yum update
ol7_UEKR6                                                                                                                                     | 3.0 kB  00:00:00
ol7_addons                                                                                                                                    | 3.0 kB  00:00:00
ol7_developer                                                                                                                                 | 3.0 kB  00:00:00
[....]
Updated:
  bind-export-libs.x86_64 32:9.11.4-26.P2.el7_9.7          btrfs-progs.x86_64 0:5.12.1-1.el7               dhclient.x86_64 12:4.2.5-83.0.1.el7_9.1
  dhcp-common.x86_64 12:4.2.5-83.0.1.el7_9.1               dhcp-libs.x86_64 12:4.2.5-83.0.1.el7_9.1        glib2.x86_64 0:2.56.1-9.el7_9
  grub2.x86_64 1:2.02-0.87.0.13.el7_9.6                    grub2-common.noarch 1:2.02-0.87.0.13.el7_9.6    grub2-pc.x86_64 1:2.02-0.87.0.13.el7_9.6
  grub2-pc-modules.noarch 1:2.02-0.87.0.13.el7_9.6         grub2-tools.x86_64 1:2.02-0.87.0.13.el7_9.6     grub2-tools-extra.x86_64 1:2.02-0.87.0.13.el7_9.6
  grub2-tools-minimal.x86_64 1:2.02-0.87.0.13.el7_9.6      gssproxy.x86_64 0:0.7.0-30.el7_9                kernel-tools.x86_64 0:3.10.0-1160.42.2.el7
  kernel-tools-libs.x86_64 0:3.10.0-1160.42.2.el7          kpartx.x86_64 0:0.4.9-135.0.1.el7_9             krb5-libs.x86_64 0:1.15.1-50.0.1.el7
  libxml2.x86_64 0:2.9.1-6.0.3.el7.5                       libxml2-python.x86_64 0:2.9.1-6.0.3.el7.5       libzstd.x86_64 0:1.5.0-1.el7
  linux-firmware.noarch 999:20210617-999.8.git0f66b74b.el7 nfs-utils.x86_64 1:1.3.0-0.68.0.1.el7.1         openldap.x86_64 0:2.4.44-24.el7_9
  oraclelinux-release-el7.x86_64 0:1.0-17.el7              pciutils.x86_64 0:3.5.1-3.0.1.el7               pciutils-libs.x86_64 0:3.5.1-3.0.1.el7
  rsyslog.x86_64 0:8.24.0-57.0.1.el7_9.1                   selinux-policy.noarch 0:3.13.1-268.0.13.el7_9.2 selinux-policy-targeted.noarch 0:3.13.1-268.0.13.el7_9.2

Replaced:
  python-chardet.noarch 0:2.2.1-3.el7

Complete!
[root@OL7 ~]#

[root@OL7 ~]# reboot

Let's install the Oracle Leapp Package now

[root@OL7 ~]# yum install leapp --enablerepo=ol7_leapp,ol7_latest
No package leapp available.
Error: Nothing to do
[root@OL7 ~]#

It didn't work at first, but the reason is actually explained by the documentation:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/operating-systems/oracle-linux/8/leapp/chap-leapp-prep.html#:~:text=This%20warning,to%20proceed.

"This warning appears if an oracle-linux-ol7.repo file already exists prior to updating the Oracle Linux 7 packages. The update process creates the .rpmnew file to avoid overwriting any customizations that might be in the current file.

In this case, use the .rpmnew file to guide you in making the necessary modifications to your existing .repo file. Incorporate any new information into your .repo file. The ol7_leapp repository description must be listed in your final oracle-linux-ol7.repo file for the upgrade to proceed."

So, what I did was to replace the default .repo file with the new .rpmnew file:

[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# ls -lrth
total 36K
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  276 Feb 16  2021 oracle-softwarecollection-ol7.repo

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4.3K May 31 00:55 oracle-linux-ol7.repo   <<<<<<<<<<<

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1.1K May 31 00:55 oraclelinux-developer-ol7.repo
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  252 May 31 00:55 oracle-epel-ol7.repo
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  226 Jun  9 03:57 virt-ol7.repo
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 2.6K Jun  9 03:57 uek-ol7.repo

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4.5K Jun  9 03:57 oracle-linux-ol7.repo.rpmnew   <<<<<<<<<<<


[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# mv oracle-linux-ol7.repo oracle-linux-ol7.repo.bk
[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# mv oracle-linux-ol7.repo.rpmnew oracle-linux-ol7.repo
[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]#

It should work now:

[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# yum install leapp --enablerepo=ol7_leapp,ol7_latest
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package leapp.noarch 0:0.12.0-1.0.1.el7_9 will be installed
--> Processing Dependency: python2-leapp = 0.12.0-1.0.1.el7_9 for package: leapp-0.12.0-1.0.1.el7_9.noarch
[....]
Transaction Summary
=====================================================================================================================================================================
Install  1 Package (+35 Dependent packages)

Total download size: 6.1 M
Installed size: 24 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y
[....]
Installed:
  leapp.noarch 0:0.12.0-1.0.1.el7_9

Dependency Installed:
  audit-libs-python.x86_64 0:2.8.5-4.el7                          checkpolicy.x86_64 0:2.5-8.el7                         dnf.noarch 0:4.0.9.2-2.el7
  dnf-data.noarch 0:4.0.9.2-2.el7                                 json-glib.x86_64 0:1.4.2-2.el7                         leapp-deps.noarch 0:0.12.0-1.0.1.el7_9
  leapp-repository.noarch 0:0.13.0-2.0.1.el7_9                    leapp-repository-deps.noarch 0:0.13.0-2.0.1.el7_9      libcgroup.x86_64 0:0.41-21.el7
  libcomps.x86_64 0:0.1.8-14.el7                                  libdnf.x86_64 0:0.22.5-2.el7                           libmodulemd.x86_64 0:1.6.4-1.el7
  librepo.x86_64 0:1.8.1-8.el7_9                                  libreport-filesystem.x86_64 0:2.1.11-53.0.1.el7        librhsm.x86_64 0:0.0.3-3.el7
  libsemanage-python.x86_64 0:2.5-14.el7                          libsolv.x86_64 0:0.6.34-4.el7                          libyaml.x86_64 0:0.1.4-11.el7_0
  policycoreutils-python.x86_64 0:2.5-34.0.1.el7                  python-IPy.noarch 0:0.75-6.el7                         python-backports.x86_64 0:1.0-8.el7
  python-backports-ssl_match_hostname.noarch 0:3.5.0.1-1.el7      python-enum34.noarch 0:1.0.4-1.el7                     python-ipaddress.noarch 0:1.0.16-2.el7
  python-pyudev.noarch 0:0.15-9.el7                               python-requests.noarch 0:2.6.0-10.el7                  python-setuptools.noarch 0:18.0.1-2.el7
  python-six.noarch 0:1.9.0-2.el7                                 python-urllib3.noarch 0:1.10.2-7.el7                   python2-dnf.noarch 0:4.0.9.2-2.el7
  python2-hawkey.x86_64 0:0.22.5-2.el7                            python2-leapp.noarch 0:0.12.0-1.0.1.el7_9              python2-libcomps.x86_64 0:0.1.8-14.el7
  python2-libdnf.x86_64 0:0.22.5-2.el7                            setools-libs.x86_64 0:3.3.8-4.el7

Complete!
[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]#

The Preupgrade command will give information about what to expect and any mayor issues before the upgrade (If you are running this in OCI, please check the documentation since you should be using "--oci" instead of "--oraclelinux")
It will also generate a "answerfile" with the changes that needs to be addressed before the upgrade can be executed

[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# leapp preupgrade --oraclelinux
==> Processing phase `configuration_phase`
====> * ipu_workflow_config
        IPU workflow config actor
==> Processing phase `FactsCollection`
====> * system_facts
        Provides data about many facts from system.
====> * tcp_wrappers_config_read
        Parse tcp_wrappers configuration files /etc/hosts.{allow,deny}.
====> * selinuxcontentscanner
        Scan the system for any SELinux customizations
====> * scancpu
        Scan CPUs of the machine.
====> * root_scanner
        Scan the system root directory and produce a message containing
[....]
==> Processing phase `Reports`
====> * verify_check_results
        Check all dialogs and notify that user needs to make some choices.
====> * verify_check_results
        Check all generated results messages and notify user about them.

============================================================
                     UPGRADE INHIBITED
============================================================

Upgrade has been inhibited due to the following problems:
    1. Inhibitor: Possible problems with remote login using root account
    2. Inhibitor: Missing required answers in the answer file
Consult the pre-upgrade report for details and possible remediation.

============================================================
                     UPGRADE INHIBITED
============================================================


Debug output written to /var/log/leapp/leapp-preupgrade.log

============================================================
                           REPORT
============================================================

A report has been generated at /var/log/leapp/leapp-report.json
A report has been generated at /var/log/leapp/leapp-report.txt

============================================================
                       END OF REPORT
============================================================

Answerfile has been generated at /var/log/leapp/answerfile    <<<<<
[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]#


[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# cat /var/log/leapp/answerfile
[remove_pam_pkcs11_module_check]
# Title:              None
# Reason:             Confirmation
# =================== remove_pam_pkcs11_module_check.confirm ==================
# Label:              Disable pam_pkcs11 module in PAM configuration? If no, the upgrade process will be interrupted.
# Description:        PAM module pam_pkcs11 is no longer available in OL-8 since it was replaced by SSSD.
# Type:               bool
# Default:            None
# Available choices: True/False
# Unanswered question. Uncomment the following line with your answer
# confirm =

[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]#

To be able to execute the upgrade, we now need to resolve the items from "UPGRADE INHIBITED" section.
In my case:

============================================================
                     UPGRADE INHIBITED
============================================================

Upgrade has been inhibited due to the following problems:
    1. Inhibitor: Possible problems with remote login using root account
    2. Inhibitor: Missing required answers in the answer file
Consult the pre-upgrade report for details and possible remediation.

To "respond" to the answerfile we can use the leapp answer command (you can also modify the answerfile instead as documentation mentions)
I also needed to allow SSH root login, something that I'm not sure should be always necessary, but I understand is better to have it enable at least during the upgrade jut to make sure you don't lose full access to the system during the process (I didn't need to restart SSH service before the upgrade though)

[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# leapp answer --section remove_pam_pkcs11_module_check.confirm=True
[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]#

[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# grep PermitRootLogin /etc/ssh/sshd_config
PermitRootLogin yes
# the setting of "PermitRootLogin without-password".
[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]#

Once this is done, we can proceed with the upgrade.
It is recommended that you keep a second session logged into the system just in case you lose connectivity.

[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]# leapp upgrade --oraclelinux
==> Processing phase `configuration_phase`
====> * ipu_workflow_config
        IPU workflow config actor
==> Processing phase `FactsCollection`
====> * scanclienablerepo
        Produce CustomTargetRepository based on the LEAPP_ENABLE_REPOS in config.
====> * system_facts
        Provides data about many facts from system.
[....]
====> * check_skip_phase
        Skip all the subsequent phases until the report phase.
==> Processing phase `TargetTransactionFactsCollection`
====> * target_userspace_creator
        Initializes a directory to be populated as a minimal environment to run binaries from the target system.
Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6  5.5 MB/s |  23 MB     00:04
Oracle Linux 8 Application Stream (x86_64)      6.2 MB/s |  26 MB     00:04
Oracle Linux 8 BaseOS Latest (x86_64)           6.1 MB/s |  35 MB     00:05
Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:07 ago on Wed Sep  8 12:18:03 2021.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package                    Arch   Version              Repository         Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 dnf                        noarch 4.4.2-11.el8         ol8_baseos_latest 539 k
Installing dependencies:
 audit-libs                 x86_64 3.0-0.17.20191104git1c2f876.el8
                                                        ol8_baseos_latest 116 k
 basesystem                 noarch 11-5.el8             ol8_baseos_latest  10 k
 bash                       x86_64 4.4.20-1.el8_4       ol8_baseos_latest 1.5 M
 brotli                     x86_64 1.0.6-3.el8          ol8_baseos_latest 323 k
[....]
tzdata                     noarch 2021a-1.el8          ol8_baseos_latest 473 k
 xz-libs                    x86_64 5.2.4-3.el8          ol8_baseos_latest  94 k
 zlib                       x86_64 1.2.11-17.el8        ol8_baseos_latest 102 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  123 Packages

Total download size: 77 M
Installed size: 598 M
Downloading Packages:
(1/123): basesystem-11-5.el8.noarch.rpm         138 kB/s |  10 kB     00:00
(2/123): brotli-1.0.6-3.el8.x86_64.rpm          1.9 MB/s | 323 kB     00:00
(3/123): bzip2-libs-1.0.6-26.el8.x86_64.rpm     1.2 MB/s |  48 kB     00:00
(4/123): audit-libs-3.0-0.17.20191104git1c2f876 245 kB/s | 116 kB     00:00
(5/123): ca-certificates-2020.2.41-80.0.el8_2.n 1.9 MB/s | 391 kB     00:00
(6/123): bash-4.4.20-1.el8_4.x86_64.rpm         3.1 MB/s | 1.5 MB     00:00
[....]
(391/393): btrfs-progs-5.12.1-1.el8.x86_64.rpm  1.6 MB/s | 858 kB     00:00
(392/393): xfsprogs-5.4.0-1.0.1.el8.x86_64.rpm  1.5 MB/s | 1.1 MB     00:00
(393/393): linux-firmware-20210617-999.8.git0f6 4.8 MB/s | 178 MB     00:36
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                           6.2 MB/s | 374 MB     01:00
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Complete!
The downloaded packages were saved in cache until the next successful transaction.
You can remove cached packages by executing 'dnf clean packages'.
==> Processing phase `InterimPreparation`
====> * efi_interim_fix
        Adjust EFI boot entry for first reboot
====> * initram_disk_generator
        Creates the upgrade initram disk

====> * add_upgrade_boot_entry
        Add new boot entry for Leapp provided initramfs.
A reboot is required to continue. Please reboot your system.


Debug output written to /var/log/leapp/leapp-upgrade.log

============================================================
                           REPORT
============================================================

A report has been generated at /var/log/leapp/leapp-report.json
A report has been generated at /var/log/leapp/leapp-report.txt

============================================================
                       END OF REPORT
============================================================

Answerfile has been generated at /var/log/leapp/answerfile
[root@OL7 yum.repos.d]#

Once completed, reboot the system.
The system will now apply all the changes for the upgrade, so it will take some time to start.
If you have console connection, is recommended to have it open in order to see what is going on.

And voilà!, we can see how the system is now upgraded:

[vagrant@OL7 ~]$ head -1 /etc/*rel*
==> /etc/oracle-release <==
Oracle Linux Server release 8.4

==> /etc/os-release <==
NAME="Oracle Linux Server"

==> /etc/prelink.conf.d <==
head: error reading '/etc/prelink.conf.d': Is a directory

==> /etc/redhat-release <==
Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.4 (Ootpa)

==> /etc/system-release <==
Oracle Linux Server release 8.4

==> /etc/system-release-cpe <==
cpe:/o:oracle:linux:8:4:server
[vagrant@OL7 ~]$

Have a look at some Post-upgrade tasks from the documentation
Completing Post Upgrade Tasks after the process so you make sure you have the system in the best conditions.

In any case, looks like a good tool to do some upgrading, but make sure you double check the pre-upgrade report and never do it on your production systems without proper testing :)

How to install Oracle Linux Automation Manager (aka “Oracle Ansible Tower”)

Project-42 — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 11:31:51 +0000

If you follow the right Oracle people, you probably already know that Oracle just released Oracle Linux Automation Manager:

Your #Ansible automation engine might be already there, included with your Oracle Linux subscription... https://t.co/RPZw37yOvs pic.twitter.com/aQZInFcUsv
— Ludovico Caldara (@ludodba) September 6, 2021

My understanding was that access to it required ULN access, so there was no way to just spin up a quick VM at home and try it out... but I was wrong.

As confirmed by Ludovico, there is public access:

I might have talked too early, it looks like a public repo is also available:https://t.co/XxZhs9oFDi
— Ludovico Caldara (@ludodba) September 7, 2021

I thought I will keep it simple for now, so I just created a VM with Vagrant and confirm you can test it out from home from that public repository.

First, add and enable the Automation public repository to your system:

[root@OracleAuto ~]# dnf config-manager --add-repo http://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/automation/x86_64
Adding repo from: http://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/automation/x86_64


[root@OracleAuto ~]#  dnf repolist
repo id                                                       repo name
ol8_UEKR6                                                     Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_appstream                                                 Oracle Linux 8 Application Stream (x86_64)
ol8_baseos_latest                                             Oracle Linux 8 BaseOS Latest (x86_64)
yum.oracle.com_repo_OracleLinux_OL8_automation_x86_64         created by dnf config-manager from http://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/automation/x86_64
[root@OracleAuto ~]# dnf config-manager --set-enabled yum.oracle.com_repo_OracleLinux_OL8_automation_x86_64


[root@OracleAuto ~]# dnf update
created by dnf config-manager from http://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL8/automation/x86_64                                      108 kB/s | 437 kB     00:04
Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:01 ago on Tue 07 Sep 2021 07:35:18 PM UTC.
Dependencies resolved.
=====================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                     Architecture            Version                                                Repository                          Size
=====================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 kernel-uek                                  x86_64                  5.4.17-2102.204.4.4.el8uek                             ol8_UEKR6                           66 M
Upgrading:
 NetworkManager                              x86_64                  1:1.30.0-10.0.1.el8_4                                  ol8_baseos_latest                  2.6 M
 NetworkManager-libnm                        x86_64                  1:1.30.0-10.0.1.el8_4                                  ol8_baseos_latest                  1.8 M
 btrfs-progs                                 x86_64                  5.12.1-1.el8                                           ol8_UEKR6                          858 k
 dhcp-client                                 x86_64                  12:4.3.6-44.el8_4.1                                    ol8_baseos_latest                  318 k
 dhcp-common                                 noarch                  12:4.3.6-44.el8_4.1                                    ol8_baseos_latest                  207 k
 dhcp-libs                                   x86_64                  12:4.3.6-44.el8_4.1                                    ol8_baseos_latest                  148 k
 dmidecode                                   x86_64                  1:3.2-8.0.2.el8                                        ol8_baseos_latest                   92 k
[....]
  nvme-cli-1.12-4.el8_4.x86_64                               openldap-2.4.46-17.el8_4.x86_64                        oraclelinux-release-el8-1.0-19.el8.x86_64
  procps-ng-3.3.15-6.0.1.el8.x86_64                          python3-firewall-0.8.2-7.0.1.el8_4.noarch              python3-rpm-4.14.3-14.el8_4.x86_64
  rpm-4.14.3-14.el8_4.x86_64                                 rpm-build-libs-4.14.3-14.el8_4.x86_64                  rpm-libs-4.14.3-14.el8_4.x86_64
  rpm-plugin-selinux-4.14.3-14.el8_4.x86_64                  rpm-plugin-systemd-inhibit-4.14.3-14.el8_4.x86_64      rsyslog-8.1911.0-7.0.1.el8_4.2.x86_64
  selinux-policy-3.14.3-67.0.6.el8_4.1.noarch                selinux-policy-targeted-3.14.3-67.0.6.el8_4.1.noarch   systemd-239-45.0.2.el8_4.3.x86_64
  systemd-libs-239-45.0.2.el8_4.3.x86_64                     systemd-pam-239-45.0.2.el8_4.3.x86_64                  systemd-udev-239-45.0.2.el8_4.3.x86_64
  virt-what-1.18-9.el8_4.x86_64
Installed:
  kernel-uek-5.4.17-2102.204.4.4.el8uek.x86_64

Complete!
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

After we update the system, we can search for the automation manager package

[root@OracleAuto ~]# dnf search automation-manager
Last metadata expiration check: 0:07:57 ago on Tue 07 Sep 2021 07:35:18 PM UTC.
================================================================= Name Matched: automation-manager ==================================================================
ol-automation-manager.src : Oracle Linux Automation Manager, based on AWX, provides a web-based user interface, REST API, and task engine built on top of Ansible.
ol-automation-manager.x86_64 : Oracle Linux Automation Manager, based on AWX, provides a web-based user interface, REST API, and task engine built on top of Ansible.
oraclelinux-automation-manager-release-el8.src : Oracle Linux Automation Manager yum repository configuration
oraclelinux-automation-manager-release-el8.x86_64 : Oracle Linux Automation Manager yum repository configuration
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

The automation package installation is fairly simple (for a default/test configuration, of course) and you can see an example below copied from the Oracle documentation:
Installing Oracle Linux Automation Manager

[root@OracleAuto ~]# dnf install ol-automation-manager
Last metadata expiration check: 0:09:39 ago on Tue 07 Sep 2021 07:35:18 PM UTC.
Dependencies resolved.
=====================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                            Architecture Version                                           Repository                                                   Size
=====================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 ol-automation-manager              x86_64       1.0.0-1.el8                                       yum.oracle.com_repo_OracleLinux_OL8_automation_x86_64        67 M
Installing dependencies:
 aajohan-comfortaa-fonts            noarch       3.001-2.el8                                       ol8_baseos_latest                                           148 k
 ansible                            noarch       2.9.23-1.el8                                      yum.oracle.com_repo_OracleLinux_OL8_automation_x86_64        17 M
 bzip2                              x86_64       1.0.6-26.el8                                      ol8_baseos_latest                                            60 k
 checkpolicy                        x86_64       2.9-1.el8                                         ol8_baseos_latest                                           346 k
 emacs-filesystem                   noarch       1:26.1-5.el8                                      ol8_baseos_latest                                            69 k
 fontconfig                         x86_64       2.13.1-3.el8                                      ol8_baseos_latest                                           274 k
 fontpackages-filesystem            noarch       1.44-22.el8                                       ol8_baseos_latest                                            16 k
 gd                                 x86_64       2.2.5-7.el8                                       ol8_appstream                                               144 k
[...]

  redis-5.0.3-2.module+el8.0.0.z+5250+19ca22c8.x86_64                                   sos-4.0-11.0.1.el8.noarch
  sshpass-1.06-9.el8.x86_64                                                             supervisor-4.2.2-1.el8.noarch
  uwsgi-2.0.18-4.0.1.el8.x86_64                                                         xmlsec1-1.2.25-4.el8.x86_64
  xmlsec1-openssl-1.2.25-4.el8.x86_64

Complete!
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

Next, we need to setup the configuration using AWX user.
Again, just following the documentation example:

[root@OracleAuto ~]# cat /etc/redis.conf
[...]
unixsocket /var/run/redis/redis.sock 
unixsocketperm 775

[root@OracleAuto ~]# /var/lib/ol-automation-manager/ol-automation-manager-DB-init.sh
 * Initializing database in '/var/lib/pgsql/data'
 * Initialized, logs are in /var/lib/pgsql/initdb_postgresql.log
Database pre-setup is completed
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

[root@OracleAuto ~]# su -l awx -s /bin/bash


[awx@OracleAuto ~]$ awx-manage migrate
Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: auth, conf, contenttypes, main, oauth2_provider, sessions, sites, social_django, sso, taggit
Running migrations:
  Applying contenttypes.0001_initial... OK
  Applying contenttypes.0002_remove_content_type_name... OK
  Applying taggit.0001_initial... OK
  Applying taggit.0002_auto_20150616_2121... OK
  Applying auth.0001_initial... OK
  Applying main.0001_initial... OK
  Applying main.0002_squashed_v300_release... OK
  Applying main.0003_squashed_v300_v303_updates... OK
  Applying main.0004_squashed_v310_release... OK
  Applying conf.0001_initial... OK
  Applying conf.0002_v310_copy_tower_settings... OK
  Applying main.0005_squashed_v310_v313_updates... OK
  Applying main.0006_v320_release... OK
  Applying main.0007_v320_data_migrations... OK
  Applying main.0008_v320_drop_v1_credential_fields... OK
  Applying main.0009_v322_add_setting_field_for_activity_stream... OK
[....]

  Applying social_django.0002_add_related_name... OK
  Applying social_django.0003_alter_email_max_length... OK
  Applying social_django.0004_auto_20160423_0400... OK
  Applying social_django.0005_auto_20160727_2333... OK
  Applying social_django.0006_partial... OK
  Applying social_django.0007_code_timestamp... OK
  Applying social_django.0008_partial_timestamp... OK
  Applying sso.0001_initial... OK
  Applying sso.0002_expand_provider_options... OK
  Applying taggit.0003_taggeditem_add_unique_index... OK

Let's now create the management user and make sure you set the correct hostname/IP address for the "AWX Instance provision"

[awx@OracleAuto ~]$ awx-manage createsuperuser --username admin
Email address: admin@test.com
Password:
Password (again):
Superuser created successfully.
[awx@OracleAuto ~]$


[awx@OracleAuto ~]$ awx-manage create_preload_data
Default organization added.
Demo Credential, Inventory, and Job Template added.
(changed: True)
[awx@OracleAuto ~]$ awx-manage provision_instance --hostname=OracleAuto
Successfully registered instance OracleAuto
(changed: True)
[awx@OracleAuto ~]$ awx-manage register_queue --queuename=tower --hostnames=OracleAuto
Creating instance group tower
Added instance OracleAuto to tower
(changed: True)
[awx@OracleAuto ~]$
[awx@OracleAuto ~]$ exit
logout

Once that is completed, we need to setup the HTTP server.
Since this is just a test, you can just create a ssl certicate to avoid issues login into your management interface (please, dont do this on your produciton system :) )

[root@OracleAuto ~]# openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/tower/tower.key -out /etc/tower/tower.crt
Generating a RSA private key
......+++++
.+++++
writing new private key to '/etc/tower/tower.key'
-----
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [XX]:
State or Province Name (full name) []:
Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]:
Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]:
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:
Email Address []:
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

I'm sure you can change the web server to your favourite one, but for now, we will setup nginx server that is the default one.
Here, we just made a backup of the default configuration and copied the default configuration from the documentation:

[root@OracleAuto ~]# mv /etc/nginx/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf.bk
[root@OracleAuto ~]# nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

[root@OracleAuto ~]# cat /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
user nginx;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

# Load dynamic modules. See /usr/share/doc/nginx/README.dynamic.
include /usr/share/nginx/modules/*.conf;

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

    sendfile            on;
    tcp_nopush          on;
    tcp_nodelay         on;
    keepalive_timeout   65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;

    include             /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type        application/octet-stream;

    # Load modular configuration files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory.
    # See http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#include
    # for more information.
    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
}
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

Last steps, just change some information on the tower setting file (just add your hostname/IP into CLUSTER_HOST_ID) and enable/start the Oracle Automation Manager Service with Systemd

[root@OracleAuto ~]# grep -i CLUSTER_HOST_ID /etc/tower/settings.py
CLUSTER_HOST_ID = "OracleAuto"
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

[root@OracleAuto ~]# systemctl enable --now ol-automation-manager.service
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ol-automation-manager.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/ol-automation-manager.service.
[root@OracleAuto ~]#

And voilà! you can now start managing your ansible playbooks directly from Oracle Automation Manager Interface

I really need to get more into Ansible and Automation, so this is could be a good way to start using Oracle own Automation manager :)