Pod quadlet files not evaluated when building from source

[shunkica]

I have uninstalled podman v4.6.1 from my el9 system and installed podman from source (tried both v4.9.2 and v5.0.0-RC1)
because systemd generate is being phased out, but at the same time quadlet files are missing important features in v4.6.1 which is shipped with el9.

However, podman-user-generator does not evaluate my .pod files, even though the .container files work just fine.

Are there any additional steps I must take for the podman built from sources to evaluate the .pod files?

[ygalblum]

@shunkica I built Quadlet from source on v5.0.0-rc1 and it does support .pod files.

Can you please check the following:

• What is the version of Quadlet that is installed /usr/libexec/podman/quadlet --version
• Run the following to check that it is in fact supported

  mkdir /tmp/quadlet_test
  echo '[Pod]' > /tmp/quadlet_test/test.pod
  QUADLET_UNIT_DIRS=/tmp/quadlet_test/ /usr/libexec/podman/quadlet -dryrun
  

• Do the same with your .pod file.
• Can you please share your .pod file?

[shunkica]

I have installed with the /usr/local prefix.

$ /usr/local/libexec/podman/quadlet --version
4.9.2
$ mkdir /tmp/quadlet_test
$ echo '[Pod]' > /tmp/quadlet_test/test.pod
$ QUADLET_UNIT_DIRS=/tmp/quadlet_test/ /usr/local/libexec/podman/quadlet -dryrun
quadlet-generator[183874]: No files parsed from [/tmp/quadlet_test]
$ ls /tmp/quadlet_test/
test.pod

My mistake is i thought that [Pod] units were supported in 4.9.2 but now I realized they aren't.

$ /usr/local/libexec/podman/quadlet --version
5.0.0-rc1
$ QUADLET_UNIT_DIRS=/tmp/quadlet_test/ /usr/local/libexec/podman/quadlet -dryrun
quadlet-generator[190130]: Loading source unit file /tmp/quadlet_test/test.pod
---test-pod.service---
[X-Pod]

[Unit]
SourcePath=/tmp/quadlet_test/test.pod
RequiresMountsFor=%t/containers

[Service]
SyslogIdentifier=%N
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/podman pod start --pod-id-file=%t/%N.pod-id
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/podman pod stop --pod-id-file=%t/%N.pod-id --ignore --time=10
ExecStopPost=/usr/local/bin/podman pod rm --pod-id-file=%t/%N.pod-id --ignore --force
ExecStartPre=/usr/local/bin/podman pod create --infra-conmon-pidfile=%t/%N.pid --pod-id-file=%t/%N.pod-id --exit-policy=stop --replace --name=systemd-test
Environment=PODMAN_SYSTEMD_UNIT=%n
Type=forking
Restart=on-failure
PIDFile=%t/%N.pid

It looks like it does actually work with v5.0.0-rc1. I just thought it didn't because the service wouldn't start.

Feb 14 09:37:27 systemd[178976]: Starting test-pod.service...
Feb 14 09:37:27 test-pod[190276]: Error: building local pause image: finding pause binary: exec: "catatonit": executable file not found in $PATH
Feb 14 09:37:27 systemd[178976]: test-pod.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=125/n/a
Feb 14 09:37:27 test-pod[190285]: Error: reading pod ID file: open /run/user/2000/test-pod.pod-id: no such file or directory
Feb 14 09:37:27 systemd[178976]: test-pod.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=125/n/a
Feb 14 09:37:27 systemd[178976]: test-pod.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 14 09:37:27 systemd[178976]: Failed to start test-pod.service.

$ sudo dnf -y builddep rpm/podman.spec --enablerepo=crb
Rocky Linux 9 - CRB                                                                                                                                                                                           5.8 kB/s | 4.5 kB     00:00    
Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:01 ago on Wed 14 Feb 2024 07:31:50 AM CET.
Package gettext-0.21-8.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package gcc-11.4.1-2.1.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package git-core-2.39.3-1.el9_2.x86_64 is already installed.
Package glib2-devel-2.68.4-11.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package glibc-devel-2.34-83.el9.7.x86_64 is already installed.
Package glibc-static-2.34-83.el9.7.x86_64 is already installed.
Package golang-1.20.10-1.el9_3.0.1.x86_64 is already installed.
Package gpgme-devel-1.15.1-6.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package libassuan-devel-2.5.5-3.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package libgpg-error-devel-1.42-5.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package libseccomp-devel-2.5.2-2.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package libselinux-devel-3.5-1.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package make-1:4.3-7.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package man-db-2.9.3-7.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package ostree-devel-2023.6-1.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package pkgconf-pkg-config-1.7.3-10.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package shadow-utils-subid-devel-2:4.9-8.el9.x86_64 is already installed.
Package systemd-252-18.el9.0.1.rocky.x86_64 is already installed.
Package systemd-devel-252-18.el9.0.1.rocky.x86_64 is already installed.
Dependencies resolved.
Nothing to do.
Complete!

[shunkica]

After building catatonit-0.2.0 from source the pod works.

$ catatonit --version
tini version 0.2.0_catatonit
$ systemctl --user start test-pod
$ podman pod ls
POD ID        NAME        STATUS      CREATED         INFRA ID      # OF CONTAINERS
95c26024c2a7  testpod     Running     12 seconds ago  3e5a56a96d1c  1

[shunkica]

Not sure why builddep doesn't install catatonit, it is available in the crb repo.

$ dnf provides catatonit --enablerepo=crb
catatonit-3:0.1.7-10.el9.x86_64 : A signal-forwarding process manager for containers
Repo        : crb
Matched from:
Provide    : catatonit = 3:0.1.7-10.el9

I guess because it only installs build dependencies and not run dependencies.

To sum everything up, pod units are only supported from v5.0.0 and my problem was the missing catatonit runtime dependency. It should probably be stated that on EL9 (probably other EL versions as well) you need to install the catatonit run dependency using dnf install catatonit --enablerepo=crb
Right now catatonit is only mentioned in the instructions for Fedora.

I have opened containers/podman.io/issues/274