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This updates to the latest image-builder-cli, adding support for rootless container use (osbuild/image-builder-cli#445). It also updates the use of related APIs to pass runInVm options where needed. With this, I was able to run a rootless bc-i-b conversion. There is one problem, which is that if you mount `~/.local/share/containers/storage` on the host to `/var/lib/containers/storage` in the container, podman will complain with: ``` Error: database static dir "~/.local/share/containers/storage/libpod" does not match our static dir "/var/lib/containers/storage/libpod": database configuration mismatch ``` Additionally, if you pass the host `/var/lib/containers/storage` into the rootless container you will get read permission errors. There are two workarounds for this. Either you can use e.g. skopeo to copy the bootc container to a separate (non-root) container storage directory and mount that, or you can cover the `db.sql` file in the storage directory to make podman not print the error. Neither of these are super clean, and we should try to figure out a better solution, but for now I was at least able to run a complete image build using the "cover db" apprach like this: ``` $ touch /tmp/foo $ podman run --rm --security-opt label=type:unconfined_t -ti --privileged \ --network=none -v $PWD/output:/output \ -v ~/.local/share/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage \ -v /tmp/foo:/var/lib/containers/storage/db.sql \ localhost/bootc-image-builder --in-vm \ --rootfs ext4 --type raw \ quay.io/fedora/fedora-bootc:43 ```
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When running in a rootless container (made possible via osbuild/bootc-image-builder#1189) then generally the per-user container store is passed to bc-i-b, both because that makes sense, but also because the container doesn't have permissions to read the host store. This is typically done by passing `-v ~/.local/share/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage` when running bc-i-b in podman. Unfortunately when this happens, podman complains that the store is in the wrong place: ``` Error: database static dir "/home/alex/.local/share/containers/storage/libpod" does not match our static dir "/var/lib/containers/storage/libpod": database configuration mismatch ``` To fix this, we pass in podman arguments `--root` and `--imagestore` to set up an environment where the graphroot is some empty directory that has the "correct" location and we only load the image layers from /var/lib/containers. To ensure this doesn't weirdly affect the regular case, this is all protected by podmanutil.IsRootless().
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When running in a rootless container (made possible via osbuild/bootc-image-builder#1189) then generally the per-user container store is passed to bc-i-b, both because that makes sense, but also because the container doesn't have permissions to read the host store. This is typically done by passing `-v ~/.local/share/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage` when running bc-i-b in podman. Unfortunately when this happens, podman complains that the store is in the wrong place: ``` Error: database static dir "/home/alex/.local/share/containers/storage/libpod" does not match our static dir "/var/lib/containers/storage/libpod": database configuration mismatch ``` To fix this, we pass in podman arguments `--root` and `--imagestore` to set up an environment where the graphroot is some empty directory that has the "correct" location and we only load the image layers from /var/lib/containers. To ensure this doesn't weirdly affect the regular case, this is all protected by podmanutil.IsRootless().
alexlarsson
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Feb 2, 2026
When running in a rootless container (made possible via osbuild/bootc-image-builder#1189) then generally the per-user container store is passed to bc-i-b, both because that makes sense, but also because the container doesn't have permissions to read the host store. This is typically done by passing `-v ~/.local/share/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage` when running bc-i-b in podman. Unfortunately when this happens, podman complains that the store is in the wrong place: ``` Error: database static dir "/home/alex/.local/share/containers/storage/libpod" does not match our static dir "/var/lib/containers/storage/libpod": database configuration mismatch ``` To fix this, we pass in podman arguments `--root` and `--imagestore` to set up an environment where the graphroot is some empty directory that has the "correct" location and we only load the image layers from /var/lib/containers. To ensure this doesn't weirdly affect the regular case, this is all protected by podmanutil.IsRootless().
alexlarsson
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Feb 2, 2026
When running in a rootless container (made possible via osbuild/bootc-image-builder#1189) then generally the per-user container store is passed to bc-i-b, both because that makes sense, but also because the container doesn't have permissions to read the host store. This is typically done by passing `-v ~/.local/share/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage` when running bc-i-b in podman. Unfortunately when this happens, podman complains that the store is in the wrong place: ``` Error: database static dir "/home/alex/.local/share/containers/storage/libpod" does not match our static dir "/var/lib/containers/storage/libpod": database configuration mismatch ``` To fix this, we pass in podman arguments `--root` and `--imagestore` to set up an environment where the graphroot is some empty directory that has the "correct" location and we only load the image layers from /var/lib/containers. To ensure this doesn't weirdly affect the regular case, this is all protected by podmanutil.IsRootless(). Note: This is similar to what is done in osbuild/image-builder-cli#447 and it has a local copy of podmanutil.IsRootless() from image-builder-cli.
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In combination with: osbuild/image-builder-cli#447 and osbuild/images#2167 i was able to avoid any workarounds when using the user container store as well. |
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This updates to the latest image-builder-cli, adding support for rootless container use
(osbuild/image-builder-cli#445).
It also updates the use of related APIs to pass runInVm options where needed.
With this, I was able to run a rootless bc-i-b conversion. There is one problem, which is that if you mount ~/.local/share/containers/storage on the host to /var/lib/containers/storage in the contained, podman will complain with:
Error: database static dir "~/.local/share/containers/storage/libpod" does not match our static dir "/var/lib/containers/storage/libpod": database configuration mismatch
Additionally, if you pass the host "/var/lib/containers/storage" into the rootless container you will get read permission errors.
There are two workarounds for this. Either you can use e.g. skopeo to copy the bootc container to a separate (non-root) container storage directory and mount that, or you can cover the "db.sql" file in the storage directory to make podman not print the error.
Neither of these are super clean, and we should try to figure out a better solution, but for now I was at least able to run a complete image build using: