Unable to use systemd drop-in files with templated containers

[ekohl]

I'm trying to convert the docker-compose.yaml file to quadlet files. As you can see, there are 2 containers that are mostly the same, except for 2 statements (expose port & exec).

My attempt is to create /etc/containers/systemd/[email protected] as follows:

[Unit]
Description=GRAMPS %i
Requires=gramps-redis.service
After=gramps-redis.service

[Container]
Image=ghcr.io/gramps-project/grampsweb:latest

ContainerName=gramps-%i
Network=gramps.network

Volume=gramps_users:/app/users  # persist user database
Volume=gramps_index:/app/indexdir  # persist search index
Volume=gramps_thumb_cache:/app/thumbnail_cache  # persist thumbnails
Volume=gramps_cache:/app/cache  # persist export and report caches
Volume=gramps_secret:/app/secret  # persist flask secret
Volume=gramps_db:/root/.gramps/grampsdb  # persist Gramps database
Volume=gramps_media:/app/media  # persist media files
Volume=gramps_tmp:/tmp

Environment=GRAMPSWEB_TREE=Gramps Web
Environment=GRAMPSWEB_CELERY_CONFIG__broker_url=redis://gramps-redis:6379/0
Environment=GRAMPSWEB_CELERY_CONFIG__result_backend=redis://gramps-redis:6379/0
Environment=GRAMPSWEB_RATELIMIT_STORAGE_URI=redis://gramps-redis:6379/1

[Service]
Restart=always

Then I also created /etc/containers/systemd/[email protected]/port.conf:

[Container]
PublishPort=8083

And /etc/containers/systemd/[email protected]/exec.conf:

[Container]
Exec=celery -A gramps_webapi.celery worker --loglevel=INFO

However, these aren't respected. My interpretation of man podman-systemd.unit implies this should work. Am I doing something wrong or is this not supported?

# rpm -qv podman
podman-5.1.0-1.fc40.x86_64

[jbtrystram]

I am running into the same issue.
The code suggest the drop-ins are loaded from the same directory as the units :

podman/cmd/quadlet/main.go

Line 260 in 7ff1494

dropinDirs = append(dropinDirs, path.Join(sourcePath, unit.Filename+".d"))

The test code suggests the same : 8ee2622

It looks like a bug, maybe the tests are broken

[Luap99]

Templates are special because by default quadlet is just a generator and cannot know what instances you have started via systemd. As such the special symlink as descriped in the docs there is required.

From https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-systemd.unit.5.html#template-files

Secondly, if you make a symlink like “[email protected]”, that will generate an instantiated template file. When generating this file quadlet will read drop-in files both from the instanced directory ([email protected]) and the template directory ([email protected]). This allows customization of individual instances.

[ekohl]

It's not obvious to me where I need to create that symlink