Arch Linux

cager

Member

Registered: 2024-01-19

Posts: 3

how to setup podman? podman machine start fails

Trying to setup podman. But can't get a podman machine to start.

I have been following https://podman.io/docs/installation to install podman. There it seems to be a oneliner `sudo pacman -S podman` (plus I installed some qemu stuff that was mentioned running podman the first time).
the next steps seem to be:

podman machine init
podman machine start

(I read it multiple times and can't find any steps that need to happen in between)

however this fails with the error:

Starting machine "podman-machine-default"
Error: unable to start host networking: "could not find \"gvproxy\" in one of {[/usr/local/libexec/podman /usr/local/lib/podman /usr/libexec/podman /usr/lib/podman] {<nil>}}.  To resolve this error, set the helper_binaries_dir key in the `[engine]` section of containers.conf to the directory containing your helper binaries."

now I can't seem to find what provides this `gvproxy`.
I did some research I see there is a mention for the brew package manager and one fedora package that would provide it - but nothing that looks like it would somehow apply to arch.

The error mentions configuring a path - I see there are some podman executables in /usr/lib/podman - but a `pacman -Ql` doesn't show me a `gvproxy` anywhere.
I don't find other podman packages in pacman that would provide that (used `pacman -F` - though maybe I'm not searching correctly).

The wiki mentions some additional dependencies for rootless podman - though I don't think they apply here I tried to install them (wanted to try rootless anyway).  But no `gvproxy`.

Could someone give me a hint how to setup podman?

Last edited by cager (2024-01-19 09:17:36)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,104

Re: how to setup podman? podman machine start fails

What about https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Podman ? I'm assuming you'd need/want one of the network packages mentioned there.

Also from a cursory googler, the machine commands are for non-Linux hosts (i.e. Mac or Windows) since they need to start some linux compatible environment first, which should be irrelevant on linux. After installing podman you should be following the standard instructions to pull/run container images.

Last edited by V1del (2024-01-19 10:20:27)

cager

Member

Registered: 2024-01-19

Posts: 3

Re: how to setup podman? podman machine start fails

Well I did follow the wiki and installe those packages, as well as some mentioned further below.
But you are right - I can run containers without starting a machine first.

I wasn't aware that the podman machine would not work under linux. (actually thought I could use it as safeguard to to limit the resources my containers would use)

Anyway - thanks. Guess I can close this thread, as it seems I just misread the docu

Last edited by cager (2024-01-19 12:00:33)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,104

Re: how to setup podman? podman machine start fails

From skimming the man page again it "should" still be usable, but the podman VM needs/assumes fedora core and that package seems to be present there primarily. and from reading on this seems to actually ultimately be gvisor, so if you really truly think you need that https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gvisor-bin

But you can already limit the resources available to a container as part of the standard podman runtime that's a bit of the entire point of the docker/container hype.

cager

Member

Registered: 2024-01-19

Posts: 3

Re: how to setup podman? podman machine start fails

Guess I need to go into this rabbit hole an interesting suggestion thanks.

(sorry - getting off topic, feel free to ignore/close )
I'm aware I can specify limits - but what I really want is to override the default of unlimited cpu/memory, so it doesn't catch me if I forget it on a misbehaved image.

Toolybird

Member

Registered: 2017-09-30

Posts: 87

Re: how to setup podman? podman machine start fails

> I wasn't aware that the podman machine would not work under linux

In theory it should work under Linux, but why bother? See also [1]

[1] https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … -/issues/1