Why are some files missing from mounted volumes?

[mcepl]

Trying to run dovecot IMAP server as a rootless podman container via Quadlet with this .container file (using podman 5.0.3 on openSUSE/MicroOS):

mitmanek:~ $ cat ~/.config/containers/systemd/dovecot.container
[Unit]
Description=Podman dovecot IMAP server container
Documentation= https://github.com/thkukuk/containers-mailserver/blob/master/dovecot/README.md
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Container]
Image=registry.opensuse.org/opensuse/dovecot
ContainerName=dovecot
HostName=my-dovecot
#Network=host
AutoUpdate=registry
Environment=DOVECOT_TLS=0 \
	USE_LDAP=0 TZ='Europe/Prague' \
	ENABLE_LMTP=1
PublishPort=1143:143
# Variables like %h don't seem to work here
Volume=/home/matej/.config/dovecot:/etc/dovecot:z
Volume=/etc/ssl:/etc/certs
Volume=/home:/var/mailstore
# Volume=/var/mail:/var/mail:z
# UserNS=keep-id:uid=1000,gid=100

[Service]
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

I have this in my local configuration folder:

mitmanek:~ $ ls /home/matej/.config/dovecot
conf.d                      dovecot-ldap.conf.ext    local.conf
dovecot.conf                dovecot-oauth2.conf.ext  sieve-ldap.conf
dovecot-dict-auth.conf.ext  dovecot-sql.conf.ext     ssl
dovecot-dict-sql.conf.ext   imap.passwd
mitmanek:~ $ 

However, when I look into the running container both local.conf and imap.passwd are missing:

mitmanek:~ $ podman run -it dovecot /usr/bin/ls /etc/dovecot/
conf.d                      dovecot-ldap.conf.ext       dovecot.conf
dovecot-dict-auth.conf.ext  dovecot-oauth2.conf.ext     sieve-ldap.conf
dovecot-dict-sql.conf.ext   dovecot-sql.conf.ext
mitmanek:~ $ 

What I am doing wrong?

[Luap99]

If you use podman run you create a new container and you do not mount the volume there at all so it just shows you the image content. If you want to execute commands in an existing running container you have to use podman exec

[mcepl]

You are right, I was too stubborn to notice it.

[mcepl]

On Mon May 27, 2024 at 11:22 AM CEST, Paul Holzinger wrote: If you use podman run you create a new container and you do not mount the volume there at all so it just shows you the image content. If you want to execute commands in an existing running container you have to use `podman exec`

I don’t understand: that cannot be correct. When I start the container with `systemctl --user start` (or `systemctl --user daemon-reexec`), `podman run` with that container still doesn’t show the missing files.

[Luap99]

Your example shows podman run without any volumes.
.container files use the volumes you configured but if you want to check that you must use this container to check and not create a new one with podman run