[Lxc-users] [systemd-devel] Unable to run systemd in an LXC / cgroup container.

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Tue, 2012-12-04 at 20:40 +0000, John wrote:
> On 26/10/12 22:02, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> > On Fri, 2012-10-26 at 12:11 -0400, Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2012-10-25 at 23:38 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 25.10.12 11:59, Michael H. Warfield (mhw at WittsEnd.com) wrote:
> >>>> I SUSPECT the hang condition is something to do with systemd trying to
> >>>> start and interactive console on /dev/console, which sysvinit and
> >>>> upstart do not do.
> >>> Yes, this is documented, please see the link I already posted, and which
> >>> I linked above a second time.
> >> This may have been my fault.  I was using the -o option to lxc-start
> >> (output logfile) and failed to specify the -c (console output redirect)
> >> option.  It seems to fire up nicely (albeit with other problems) with
> >> that additional option.  Continuing my research.
> > Confirming.  Using the -c option for the console file works.
> > Unfortunately, thanks to no getty's on the ttys so lxc-console does not
> > work and no way to connect to that console redirect and the failure of
> > the network to start, I'm still trying to figure out just what is face
> > planting in a container I can not access.  :-/=/  Punch out the punch
> > list one PUNCH at at time here.
> >
> >>>> I've got some more problems relating to shutting down containers, some
> >>>> of which may be related to mounting tmpfs on /run to which /var/run is
> >>>> symlinked to.  We're doing halt / restart detection by monitoring utmp
> >>>> in that directory but it looks like utmp isn't even in that directory
> >>>> anymore and mounting tmpfs on it was always problematical.  We may have
> >>>> to have a more generic method to detect when a container has shut down
> >>>> or is restarting in that case.
> >>> I can't parse this. The system call reboot() is virtualized for
> >>> containers just fine and the container managaer (i.e. LXC) can check for
> >>> that easily.
> >> Apparently, in recent kernels, we can.  Unfortunately, I'm still finding
> >> that I can not restart a container I have previously halted.  I have no
> >> problem with sysvinit and upstart systems on this host, so it is a
> >> container problem peculiar to systemd containers.  Continuing to
> >> research that problem.
> >>
> >>> Lennart
> >>> -- 
> >>> Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.
> >> Regards,
> >> Mike
> >
> >
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> I raised the question about LXC/systemd a while back and have been 
> trying to follow the conversation but I have to admit it's going 
> somewhat over my head. I've also been away on another piece of work but 
> would now like to understand where things lie with LXC and systemd 
> inside a container.

Ok...  I'll try to answer some of them...

> I have just updated my system to 0.8.0 and I can't see any changes to 
> make a systemd container work. Are there changes in 0.8.0 ?

There are very significant changes in 0.8.0 but, unfortunately, not the
ones you need to get systemd to work in a container.  We've been testing
a lot of these and they are in git but they are not in a release yet.
Hopefully soon, just not yet.

> If so, I'd be grateful for some guidance on what I need to do to to my 
> configuration to make it work.

Right now, you'll have to build from git.

> I'm also happy to help test this if I can. If it helps I am on Arch Linux.

There are two problems.  One is systemd in an lxc container.  I think we
have a rope on this one and it's tied down.  The other is the more
recent (195+) versions of systemd in the host that throw the "pivot
root" errors.  That has not been addressed as yet.  I use Fedora.  Right
now, I have Fedora 17 hosts with Fedora 17 containers.  Fedora 18
(currently in beta) host (systemd 195) is going to be a train wreck
until we sort the pivot root problem.  I don't know what you have with
Arch Linux.  You'll have to tell us what versions of systemd you are
running.

> many thanks everyone.

> John

Mike
-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
   NIC whois: MHW9          | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0x674627FF        | possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!
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