Arch Linux

markzz

Member

From: Michigan, United States

Registered: 2013-06-08

Posts: 89

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machinectl: Failed to get login PTY: Protocol error

I am attempting to create a Debian stretch systemd-nspawn container on my laptop. I have done this before, but although I can use the systemd-nspawn utility to start the machine, but machinectl seems to have issues.

Just to get started, I will list below how I installed the container (just like in the wiki with one different step)...

# cd /var/lib/machines
# btrfs subvolume create stretch
# debootstrap --include=systemd-container stretch stretch http://deb.debian.org/debian/
# systemd-nspawn -D stretch
# passwd
^]^]^]

I have also verified that dbus and systemd-containers are installed in the container and started it with "machinectl start stretch". Then trying to login with "machinectl login stretch" gives me the error in the title of this thread.

Doing a quick "machinectl status stretch" gives me the following:

stretch(a3eae92739814ef192023160aa1b633a)
           Since: Mon 2018-11-05 22:13:04 EST; 46s ago
          Leader: 3361 (systemd)
         Service: systemd-nspawn; class container
            Root: /var/lib/machines/stretch
           Iface: ve-stretch
       UID Shift: 1453064192
            Unit: systemd-nspawn@stretch.service
                  ├─payload
                  │ └─3361 /lib/systemd/systemd
                  └─supervisor
                    └─3359 /usr/bin/systemd-nspawn --quiet --keep-unit --boot --link-journal=try-guest --network-veth -U --settings=override --machine=stretch

Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: [1B blob data]
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: Welcome to Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)!
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: [1B blob data]
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: Set hostname to <mun>.
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: Failed to read AF_UNIX datagram queue length, ignoring: No such file or directory
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: Failed to install release agent, ignoring: No such file or directory
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: Failed to create /init.scope control group: Permission denied
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: Failed to allocate manager object: Permission denied
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: [!!!!!!] Failed to allocate manager object, freezing.
Nov 05 22:13:05 mun systemd-nspawn[3359]: Freezing execution.

I noticed in that output that the "-U" flag is in the "systemd-nspawn" command. Once I removed this from "/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-nspawn@.service", it starts working just fine.

According to the wiki, this is to start an unprivileged container. Because the wiki does not really discuss this (or have anything in troubleshooting if you encounter my problem) and doing some Google-fu does not bring up this error at all (not that I've seen at least), I'm asking how can I resolve this other than my workaround. Or, is this a bug with Arch Linux's packaged version of that unit?

The other weird thing to note is making an Arch Linux container works perfectly fine.

Any insight into this would be much appreciated!

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