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Add support for running bootc bootable containers #54

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@albertofaria albertofaria commented Apr 22, 2024

We attempt to detect if a container image is bootable. We can't easily retrieve the image's labels, so we instead look for files under /usr/lib/bootc/install. If there are none, it isn't a bootable container. If it is a bootable container but we're not running under Podman or Docker, we fail with an error.

Once our container's entrypoint starts running, a background process on the host (outside the container) queries Podman/Docker for the image's name and ID, which the OCI runtime does not get but bootc-install needs. It then saves the container image as a docker-archive.

It then runs the original container to generate the VM image. We do this using krun so that elevated privileges aren't necessary. Our entrypoint blocks until this is done, and all subsequent logic remains the same.

We could potentially avoid the docker-archive creation step by mounting the host's container storage into the container running under krun. This isn't trivial to achieve due to SELinux label and context mismatches between the host and the krun environment, so we leave this optimization for a future date.

Closes #26.

TODO:

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@rhatdan @germag WDYT?

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Ephemeral COPR build failed. @containers/packit-build please check.

@albertofaria albertofaria force-pushed the bootc branch 3 times, most recently from cb31a66 to db868d2 Compare May 1, 2024 10:05
@albertofaria albertofaria mentioned this pull request May 1, 2024
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Signed-off-by: Alberto Faria <afaria@redhat.com>
We attempt to detect if a container image is bootable. We can't easily
retrieve the image's labels, so we check if /usr/lib/bootc/install
exists and is a directory. If so, it is a bootable container. If it is a
bootable container but we're not running under Podman, we fail with an
error.

Once our container's entrypoint starts running, a background process on
the host (outside the container) queries Podman for the image's name and
ID, which the OCI runtime does not get but bootc-install needs. It then
saves the container image as an OCI archive.

It then runs the original container to generate the VM image. We do this
using krun [1] so that elevated privileges aren't necessary. Our
entrypoint blocks until this is done, and all subsequent logic remains
the same.

We could potentially avoid the OCI archive creation step by mounting the
host's container storage into the container running under krun. This
isn't trivial to achieve due to SELinux label and context mismatches
between the host and the krun environment, so we leave this optimization
for a future date.

Closes #26.

[1] https://github.com/containers/crun/blob/main/krun.1.md

Signed-off-by: Alberto Faria <afaria@redhat.com>
Store them as untagged containerdisks in the user's container storage.
They appear in the output of `podman images`, making users aware of
their existence and size on disk, and cleanup commands like `podman
image prune` remove them.

Signed-off-by: Alberto Faria <afaria@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alberto Faria <afaria@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Alberto Faria <afaria@redhat.com>
It allows settings the disk size of the VM image that is generated from
a bootc container image.

Also improve the default disk size by basing it on the container image
size.

Signed-off-by: Alberto Faria <afaria@redhat.com>
Its value is a random identifier unique to the current run of the
current test.

Signed-off-by: Alberto Faria <afaria@redhat.com>
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Consider supporting bootc bootable containers
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