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nabbisen
nabbisen

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at scqr.net

Podman 4.3 on Artix Linux: Fix initialization issues

Summary

It is not so difficult to install Podman on Artix Linux, based on Arch Linux and systemd-free.
It's because pacman brings key packages: podman and qemu-base of QEMU.

You can prepare Podman by installing them and configure some. }}">After completing them, you can start virtual machine and manage containers ... to a certain extent.

There are issues left, which occurs problems on process handling or networking.
This post shows how to fix them.

Environment

Issued and Solutions

* doas (OpenDoas) can be replaced with sudo.

system migrate warned due to lack of buildah

Issue description

buildah is a "tool that facilitates building OCI images" of Containers.
If it is not installed, podman system migrate will print out the warning:

WARN[0000] "/" is not a shared mount, this could cause issues or missing mounts with rootless containers
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In addition, some of the following podman operations will also print the same warning.

Solution

Install buildah. It's easy to install thanks to pacman:

$ doas pacman -Sy buildah
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The output and the interaction were:

:: Synchronizing package databases...
(...)
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (2) skopeo-1.11.0-1  buildah-1.28.2-1

Total Download Size:   15.06 MiB
Total Installed Size:  52.21 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages...
(...)
:: Processing package changes...
(...)
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Run podman system migrate again. It will not surely print any error or warning.

gvproxy was missing so networking was limited

Issue description

When starting a virtual machine, it printed gvproxy was missing and therefore "unable to start host networking".

$ podman machine start
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The output was:

Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
Error: unable to start host networking: "could not find \"gvproxy\" in one of [/usr/local/libexec/podman /usr/local/lib/podman /usr/libexec/podman /usr/lib/podman].  To resolve this error, set the helper_binaries_dir key in the `[engine]` section of containers.conf to the directory containing your helper binaries."
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Solution

gvproxy is published as gvisor-tap-vsock by Containers in Github.
Download the latest version (0.5.0, in my case) from releases. One for Linux is called gvproxy-linux.

In your local, rename it to gvproxy and place it as Podman helper binaries. Where ? The error messages above mentioned the candidates. Also, remember to modify the permissions.

$ doas mv gvproxy-linux /usr/lib/podman/gvproxy

$ doas chown root:root /usr/lib/podman/gvproxy
$ doas chmod a+x /usr/lib/podman/gvproxy
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Besides, you may be able to find the package in pacman repositories or AUR.

timedatectl was missing so .ign, ignition file for vm, was not created

Issue description

getLocalTimeZone in ignition_linux.go of Podman executes timedatectl, which is a part of systemd. Therefore, podman machine init failed with the error:

Extracting compressed file
Image resized.
Error: exec: "timedatectl": executable file not found in $PATH
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and .ign, ignition conf, for the default machine was not created.

As a result, podman machine start failed due to the error:

Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
Waiting for VM ...
Error: qemu exited unexpectedly with exit code 1, stderr: qemu-system-x86_64: -fw_cfg name=opt/com.coreos/config,file=/home/(...)/.config/containers/podman/machine/qemu/podman-machine-default.ign: can't load /home/(...)/.config/containers/podman/machine/qemu/podman-machine-default.ign: Failed to open file “/home/(...)/.config/containers/podman/machine/qemu/podman-machine-default.ign”: No such file or directory
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Solution

It will be fixed in 4.4.

Let timedatectl executable placed in you $PATH... somehow now 😅

My way was to:

  1. Create a Cargo project named "timedatectl".
  2. Write Rust code to just print my time zone (with input parameters ignored).

    fn main() {
        println!("Asia/Tokyo");
    }
    
  3. Built it and placed in $PATH, actually /usr/local/bin.

Conclusion

podman machine init must be successful like below !!!

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Machine init complete
To start your machine run:

    podman machine start

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Then run podman machine start. It will start in rootless mode like a charm 😊

Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
Waiting for VM ...
Mounting volume... /home/(...):/home/(...)

This machine is currently configured in rootless mode. If your containers
require root permissions (e.g. ports < 1024), or if you run into compatibility
issues with non-podman clients, you can switch using the following command: 

    podman machine set --rootful

API forwarding listening on: /home/(...)/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/podman-machine-default/podman.sock
You can connect Docker API clients by setting DOCKER_HOST using the
following command in your terminal session:

    export DOCKER_HOST='unix:///home/(...)/.local/share/containers/podman/machine/podman-machine-default/podman.sock'

Machine "podman-machine-default" started successfully
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Hope that some of the solutions above might help you enjoy Podman containers and pods.

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